Sadly I'm feeling the same way, I've received plenty of votes but nothing from whales so it basically doesn't count and that right there tells you something is not right. I'm not here to promote my posts so here's a perfect example of one I voted for, it got a greasly $0.04 payout: https://steemit.com/steemit/@millen/steempages-com-a-steemit-business-and-project-directory-beta
I know life isn't fair but this is getting ridiculous, the whales really have too much power compared to the rest and if you don't get an upvote from one of them (and there are very few!) in the first 15-30 minutes your post is basically doomed to oblivion.