Absolutely.
It's tough right being able to provide rewards by your voting with the expectation of it being flagged back down. So most of my mind goes into ways to 'motivate' outside of the voting system. The down side of this is that it'd take funds outside of a vote and I don't really like the idea of telling anyone what to do with their money.
Now, this could go well outside of memes. Offering a reward to onboard somebody. Offer a reward to advertise somewhere, or to try to find a great person with a decent following but not quite 'there yet' to bring on board. In the past, there was a positivity project that was run to try and help things 'lighten up' (which unfortunately ran via resteems and upvotes.)
Idk, but I can't think of anything off the top of my head that doesn't require offering funds directly. Maybe something like trying to accumulate donations from members to then distribute to a person that seems to be most 'showing steemit values.' (However that would be defined, lol.)
Anyway, I'm exhausted and wanna try to get a little more writing done. In the end, there is nothing wrong with just continuing to do what you do naturally (since it's already have good impact, even with the counterflags.)
Thank you, and thank you for the encouraging words. Rest well!