One of the problems is that whales and dolphins need to spend some time sowing the seeds for minnows to grow into whales and dolphins,

upvotes are good for building rep, but they do not meet the new Steemers' expectations of remuneration for participation. Unmet expectations result in disappointment and failure to participate, i.e, leaving Steemit.

If a post or a comment is worth responding to via comment or upvote, and the whale/dolphin can adjust his voting reward, he should leave a minimum on 1 cent.

Looking at some posts and comments in the new post feed, and the upvotes and who upvoted them, it seems that some heftier names are leaving monetarily worthless upvotes. Note I don't say worthless, as they do increase the rep of the poster.

However, the newbie doesn't understand that, sees their contribution is unrewarded, and goes back to Facebook where the likes coming from friends and family are worth something in their minds.

You've done a great job of explaining that the platform is still young, and I agree with you that in the long term, Steemit is going to get big, but I think that the more invested stakeholders need to invest more effort into growing the user base.