Hey Acidyo,
I also manually curate and read nearly everything I vote on. I usually find some smaller users and support them for a while. If they create excellent posts they soon start to build their own audience.
I have sometimes considered how much money I have left on the table to try to use the site as I would expect and end-user to use it. By reading, voting and interacting.
I am unsure how I will proceed, I'm hoping to "make" something out of all of this as well.