My feel is that there is so much quality content out there that goes unnoticed... right under the radar. So many authors and creators work hard to post quality content and whoosh it goes right to the bottom of the page and no one sees it... this can be quite discouraging at times, but staying active and engaging with the steemit community is where the money is in the long haul, which is why I continue to try and contribute my fair share of the pie in the comments section, as you state.
One thing I am still a little confused about, is how your estimated account value can fluctuate down even though steem and SBD continue to rise??