For the last week, maybe slightly longer, I have had to up my vote to 30% to stay at the $0.02 level. I use 30% when voting on comments, on a post if it has a payable reward I drop back to a 20-25% level, as I know the vote will not be burned in a dust up. On contest thingies like the steemboard, my vote is almost always at the 20% level, this allows me to still get to a good amount of people with a payable reward. If we knew everyone had a dustsweeper account then the lower vote would be no real problem, as it would be taken care of by dustsweeper. But we don't know.

If it takes increasing the vote level to be sure it does not get burned up as dust, then best to do that than have the votes go up in smoke that are passed out.

If anyone is interested, yes I do have an @dustsweeper account, and yes I have to keep replenishing my account, and yes it is worth it, for me and for you. If you vote on a comment I make on your post, I will get rewarded, and you will get your curation reward. If you have a dustsweeper account you will get rewarded for those once burned up penny votes, yes you will need to replenish or top up your account, but it is worth it.