"it leaves me with more questions than answers"

me too! lol I'm about to sleep but yes, I'd be interested to see what @ned has to say about these things and more importantly what kinds of changes will be implemented on the next fork. I'll search for it, see if I can find it.

I kept thinking this has to be wrong, maybe I am just not adding it up correctly? i have another bigger payout coming in a day or so, so we will see how that one turns out.

This also makes me curious about the Haijen issue, because he is doing what he is doing for a reason, so he has to be gaining money, right? Except instead of one post a day he does a dozen and bets three times as much on each post. To what end though?

Maybe his payout is different due to his SP? I've yet to analyze his wallet and those kinds of things, maybe one of these days when I am bored enough I will, just to try and compare and see what the heck is going on. I'd be curious to see if there is any difference between the amount he transfers to the bidbots, and the amount the bid bot itself returns at payout.

I was shocked a bit, but remain hopeful. I am going to fiddle around a bit more, because that's the way I learn best, through trial and error and then analyzing things, but I am not that technical at all so alot of this is a learning curve as well.

the 100 percent steem payout thing is the most disturbing to me. I cannot believe how much I wasted that way. Why not just label the choices for payout more accurately and honestly, such as:
decline payout, 100 percent full payout (currently the 50/50 option), or decline half of your payout (currently the 100 percent steem power option)

:)