It might be only pennies now, but it could be worth a lot more in the future. Ethereum used to be "only pennies" - imagine if we were being paid the same value in Ether in the first couple of years of its existence...
Anyway, your post gives a helpful and interesting insight. As I powered up relatively recently, I don't really know how to make my upvotes worth 0.03 STEEM - I haven't worked out a way to deduct what percentage upvote gives what amount (though I realise you're recommending that someone of my SP level should probably not be wasting their VP on comment upvotes, so that's something I should certainly think about.)