RE: WHY ARE SOME OF STEEMIT BEST WRITERS LEAVING? ARE YOU FEELING IGNORED? WHAT CAN WE DO TO INCREASE RETENTION OF CREATIVE WRITERS? DO WE HAVE ROOM FOR SIMPLE SOCIAL POSTS? HOW CAN WE BALANCE BETWEEN SOCIAL MEDIA AND CREATIVE CONTENT?

Distribute the wealth more evenly. 50 votes doesn't even equal 0.01 sometimes. Whales and dolphins are voting up others on average 3 times a day, and usually only if some other whale has voted it up. Lazy bastards. Can't even look through content themselves, so they choose 'sheepy' mentality - "hey, someone powerful voted it up, so I will too"
That's called chasing the money. Typical of gold diggers. Circling around them only makes their dictatorship of content more powerful.
People who actually read content and decide for themselves that something is cool or not - Give them a promotion.