Your response is lengthy, but not "rediculously lengthy". Thank you very muhc for taking the time to defend your point of view, and especially, to explain it. I'm glad I've been asking for it, and will follow big part of your advise.
There's one thing that some of the people spending many hours per day on Hive don't seem to understand though... Not everybody has got that time. I'm spending for example more time than I actually have on it and this already for several months, just because I want to be consistent. Still I don't have the time to answer on everything, read everything I'd like to read (not to mention to comment it) and write blogs and articles which I'd like to write. This means that I'm not able to participate in many of these contests, only already time wise.
Anyway I want to participate here and get rewarded somehow for it. Maybe that's why in the end I'm choosing for the 7-day promotion for the few "decent" articles I'm writing. I get your point though and might consider in the future to go for less days. And call it the easy way, when I post in Actifit, but I need to start somewhere...