I have noticed that. The older steemians are being buried. I did speak about that in a contest for steemfest where i see attention apparently given to mostly newer minnows when there are many older ones and proven ones being buried and in that post, i was able to be some voice and support an old minnow who was allowed to participate. Recently, i did win steemfest plane ticket and steemfest ticket by speaking up in a post. but for me to join that one, i noticed that the definition of minnow there was more of people who cant afford the tickets. So this has been on my mind too.

Overall, in your case, you have those wow moments. According to me, you already have them. You have several steemians who vouch for you heartily and it does start there. I see you as great, everytime.
I use you as an example, to many in the PH community currently especially in the aspect of going world-standard in what you do both in your craft and in the connections you are building. Those are rewards. In reality, even from minnow days, i didn't really earn in terms of sbds but i did get opportunities.

I think one key to that was creating an enterprise and this advice has worked, for the many to whom i have told this. So look at steem itself.
On steemit, this can take different forms even by means of your blogs. A simple way may be, a small community that you can call yours, then you can all move together and once there is something solid in motion, it will attract interest. On the python side, that can work drastically too. but for most things, community has to be involved. You have a strong community around you already and that's powerful. Overtime, i see great things happening!