I hate to see people leave. If I might share my experience with you... stick to good content. It gets incredibly frustrating, but in the long run it pays off I think. I didn't get the reputation I have by posting crap. That's what I use to judge- someone's rep, not how many followers they have. I don't know who 3/4 of mine are. I figure I have about 150-200 actual followers.

I'm the first to admit, I've thrown out a junk post or two, but I always try to include some text- humor. About posting frequency: after the last HF, the amount of votes you can cast have declined (4x) so you can't expect your followers to vote your stuff exclusively every few minutes- it's unrealistic. This is my only means of support, but I try not to hog the reward pool. If I do well on one post- that's it for the day. I look at this as a community. There are some incredibly good people on here and we try to help each other out. My other piece of advice is become part of the community. That's it- I won't bend your ear anymore!