For someone that is just new you pick things up rather quickly.
Upvote bots are a common thing on Steemit, it has its up and downs, the downside mostly being a phenonom called "circle jerking", in which the same authors are upvoted for the best curation rewards. Actually might have an article you mind find interesting concerning this issue: https://steemit.com/curation/@thecryptofiend/the-curation-conundrum
As for the comment engagement I totally agree. Right now upvotes are mostly concentrated on articles, and I think this should be balanced out more. However, waiting a week before upvoting comments wouldn't really be a good option in my opinion. Because it would make the engagement less, seeing that after 7 days a post's payout is already done, leaving the comment section to a dead zone.
Thank you for your informative comment and URL droucil, and apologies for my late reply. Only today did I learn where to go to keep track of replies. I guess I got lazy from all my forum services which arrange to have an email messages sent to you when there are replies.
haha :P Seems like you still got some things to learn then ;)