Of course everything means something different to each individual. The world would be lame if that wasn't the case.
It comes down to this, if you can receive 400 votes, but have less than 1% organic interaction, it's not bringing any real value, except for the author. This happens a lot and especially on curation posts.
Of course I've read and created curation posts, which you know, but I haven't read any in a long time. I live on the trending and recent feeds. You may not realize this, but I joined Steemit in 2016. I learned early on that curations weren't a great way to find the content I want.
To sum up my take, curation posts, while highlighting individuals are not popular and actually over shadow the authors being showcased. They really don't get much of a boost if any from it and the project makes bank, from the curation posts, not the whole of what constitutes curation.
It doesn't need to be that way, but in the current form it is. An this is just an opinion.
Lastly, I see many comments praising Communities and curation, but not posts. Most of those are a courtesy and not really authentic. Many that seem authentic are just attempts to gain cred to get better votes. Not all, but enough.
Interesting! I think we are both probably on the money any way, you know. Xx