I think it's wonderful that you put so much heart, and so much time into your posts, @thekittygirl. All that care really shows, and makes a huge difference for readers. We all benefit enormously from great content that is not only well-written, but thoughtful, engaging, well-researched and interesting to look at. In some ideal world (at least in my mind), that kind of content would get the best rewards and content that was not well-thought out and well-written would not.
That said, it's not how things really work, and I've never quite been sure why. I suppose there are many reasons. Not only are bots at work, but people get great rewards if they have developed a lot of followers. Some people merely have to pop a picture or a paragraph up there and - BAM - valuable upvotes. Others can write their hearts out and get a pittance. Will HF21 fix that? It's dubious at best. We shall see.
I used to put tons of time into my posts. I ran contests and posted short stories and wrote weekly posts providing writing tips to fiction writers. Then some life stuff happened and my job kind of exploded and I realized I was writing big content for a small audience and all that combined to dissuade me from putting that much life energy into my content. (Plus I am working toward mainstream publications with my fiction writing. So I needed to divert some of the time and energy I was putting into Steem to make that happen.)
What worries me the most is basically what you're suggesting -- that HF21 will be a disincentive for all content creators on Steem, and great content will cease to exist. Without great content, what will draw new users? What will keep us all here on the platform? Why should anyone spend their time and energy writing awesome posts?
My hunch, very honestly, is that it will continue just fine but a little differently. For one thing, I would hazard to guess that putting all that time into your posts is a work of passion, and not just about the rewards. You write beautiful posts partly because it's who you are and you have a drive to produce high quality work. Am I right? So don't stop. Do it for the love of it.
Not only that, but if fewer people have incentive to write content at all, perhaps those who are driven to develop content out of passion for expressing themselves and sharing interesting ideas will kind of gain more notoriety and rise to the top. If you're rewarded a little less, but your followers have more incentive to upvote and comment on your content, it might result in more rewards for great content creators like you. Just a thought.
For my part, as I've alluded to, I'm sort of in maintenance mode right now just due to what's happening in my life. I truly care about great content, but I simply can't put hours into a post. No can do. I write a short post every day. It's kind of like a journal entry about what happened for me that day. I try to make it interesting to read and share something funny or weird that happened, along with pictures. I write through Actifit because I love the incentive to both hit my exercise goal each day and also write a post daily. But I guarantee my posts don't write themselves! I really think about what I want to write each night, and I share images and thoughts that I hope are of interest, and easy enough to read for people who are as crazy-busy as I am.
I hope this provides some additional perspective. There are many ways to be content creators, and hopefully the best content creators will gain the most followers and get the best rewards. We shall see in a few days how it's all going to shake out!