Powering up is the most important thing a Steem User can do - grow your stake and spread the wealth :-) Still, it's quite saddening to see that I only have a '20 cents' upvote to give with more than 7000 active SP.
I do believe however that in the future even 100 SP accounts are quite 'wealthy' - so the middle class we're looking for now might end up being in the lower ranks compared to 'today'. I believe many today see Dolphins as the strong middle class we need, but I tend to believe that in a few years those are exceptionally rich accounts and the middle class is more in the Minnow ranks.
That means that if we aim for 10000 SP we'll have som real impact in the future as well ;-)
As for the not powering up: @paulag did a post about that recently, where she explained she discovered most Steemians don't even know they can power up and how it affects their accounts and the actions they can perform on the blockchain :-/ Education in this sense is the most important thing we can do. Ask any new user 'do you know how/why to power up?' and guide them through it. @steemonboarding will probably play a role in educating, and @steemsavvy as well.
Thanks for writing this up! Because in short: Powering up is important - 1st of May is 'SPUD' or 'Steem Power Up Day' - are you joining? :D Cheers!
Thanks for your amazing comment @soyrosa. Educating people about what the possibilities are is great; having an understanding of the complex system of Steem might be a bit too much for newbie or just non-tech users, so I think a big barrier STEEM will have to face is making the product accessible.
People still mess up with keys and authorization, let's hope that SPUD goes well tomorrow!