@onepercentbetter, thank you for sharing your experience, frustrations and research with us!

Like you, I had my fair share of exceeding-bandwidth limit issues when I started 35 days ago. Inspired this - hehe

Only recently I began to figure it out with the help of @davemccoy telling me about steemd.com!

One of the things I was doing was treating an "Upvote" more a "Like", "Wink", an acknowledgement, rather than a "Vote". Used up my bandwidth, plus it caused by Voting Power to drop!!

For improved VP, their suggestion is yours ... "Patience - go take a break, do some other stuffs."

I refrained from participating on Steemit for 2 days, VP doubled and bandwidth filled up. Since then, I am being more selective in my Votes and increasing quality and quantity Comments. The numbers are looking healthy now!

Thanks again for your info!