Ya I feel like curating is probably the best thing to focus on. I'm sure my curation has been really weak too, although slightly better recently.
At first I thought of curation as like a bonus "oh if you happen to curate a good post you make a tiny bit for nothing, neat" .. but recently it's dawned on me that it's just an aspect of your Steem Power investment, that you're actually giving up value to not curate effectively (just like you'd be giving up value to not earn the same interest as everybody else).
I doubt I'll put a ton of effort into curating optimally (I probably would if I were a whale), but I'm going to make a better effort to at least use my votes and stay active with it.
Recently I had a talk with someone saying that he could make good results spending only 20 minutes a day on curation
https://steemit.com/steemit/@alexgr/curation-income-might-be-more-lucrative-than-originally-thought-for-small-investors#@alexgr/re-svamiva-re-alexgr-re-svamiva-re-alexgr-re-svamiva-re-alexgr-curation-income-might-be-more-lucrative-than-originally-thought-for-small-investors-20161003t101105642z