Long read but very interesting topics have been brought to light here. Most important part I believe is about dead servers being voted for.
I am a young witness myself and I wanted to point out something. Not all the crossed out servers are actually dead. For example, my witness server is running, but because it still has not received a block yet it is crossed out.
Me and my team are developing a free mobile app for Steemit right now called SteemApp. Please support us by voting as witness if you believe young talent deserve a vote. Thanks @kenistyles for such interesting read. Does not happen every day.
Thanks for showing up and promoting yourself @yuriks2000. You have a valid point in the data you have 9 votes and are clearly working on a valuable asset to our dapp pool and yet are stuck out. I agree you are not "dead" and would imagine that once you have processed your first block you will show as active, please keep us informed on that.
Though I see there many other witnesses who have not yet processed a single block and not missed any either. They are ranking higher than you simply due to having more votes and in turn attributed vests. I can see up to 198th position is possible without a single block processed.
Keep up the great work, I am sure when your app is launched you will gain more traction.