2018 will be epic regardless! That's the attitude man! Every new feature, every new tool is a resource to be used to make your experience that much better!
The concept of going in Steem full time is amazing and amazingly scary at the same time. My plan, which is by no means a perfect solution for everyone, is to build up my crypto capital to the point where I am debt free. Mortgage, cars, credit cards all paid off. Then I can go full time in on this stuff.
My wife loves working, loves her job, and will work until she dies. So If the debts are all paid, then her salary would easily keep our bills paid if all of my crypto crashed. At that point it is a near zero risk game.
I'd love to see that happen in 2018, but I am allowing myself to be of the mindset that it is going to take longer than that. If it doesn't, then I will be over the moon happy. But if it does, I won't allow myself to be overly disappointed.
Would love to see Communities finally hit the street for us to play with and get some content discovery tools that actually work! The filth is hard to wade through!
I have to admit not having read the suggestions you have had for how to best utilize your Steem Power, but I know finding people you trust to curate on your behalf and delegating even 5000 SP to 10 different people would make a huge difference for those you choose as well as the people they are able to vote for who you might never see. Being the recipient of a delegation from @fulltimegeek and @stellabelle has been a total game changer for me! It's just a matter of finding the right people who will utilize the power for good and not evil!
on a side note.... I signed up for steemauto and joined your fan thingie, but it is not auto voting your posts. I think all the auto vote services are having a rough go of it, but I guess I ought to see if it is something on my end that I screwed up. I'm missing out on some curation rewards when I don't get my vote in until your post is already at $300.... LOL
Here's to 2018 man! May it be the best year yet!