All great suggestions.
I think one thing that is not talked about nearly enough each of us using our allotted 20% each day to upvote other people's work. This is a community and people like to be recognized. With all the discussions about low retention rates, that is a way to get it up. We all are allocated so much voting power, use it. That is what rewards others for their valuable contributions. It also serves to motivate them to write more.
To me, this is a fine way to grow the platform.
I tend to have the opposite problem--overvoting. But I have a companion article coming out tomorrow about improving the quality on Steem and some ideas for how we, as individuals, can contribute. One of those points is upvoting quality posts. If you have trouble finding enough stuff to upvote yourself, an option is to follow a curation trail or a human curator who goes after the type of quality you want to support.
I hear you...I have that same problem...many times I put myself in comment only mode because I blast through my allotted vote amount.
On here I rarely find that to be a problem...there is a ton of quality stuff that people post. It really is amazing. If one isnt finding quality stuff, he or she simply isnt looking.
Or perhaps he or she has a different definition of quality than you do? Or is looking in a different tag category that is so swollen with garbage that hours are wasted without finding things that aren't already hit by curie?
I always keep my voting power in check so I don't have this problem.... it's sad because voting someone in the morning means I can't vote for someone better at night if I used my 10 upvotes...