It's just my experience Steve that I get pressured to upvote friends posts and I am told it is the way to get noticed and get ahead.
I may be different to others in that I usually write blog posts because I enjoy writing them. I don't need to be paid for them, but I quite like getting some engagement for them via comments and discussion. I spent quite a while on Tumblr before using Steemit.
I think the views of someone like yourself with a high SP will be different from minnows such as myself. I don't really get many votes and the ones I have are small. I want to reserve them for content that matters to me. There are quality posts on here, but I have to look really hard to find them. The system isn't surfacing them to me.
Your votes won't have a huge effect so you may as well use it as you like. Nobody is really missing out if they don't get it. What you can contribute are your comments. Some of us are really into the conversation.
My vote is not huge, but I use it to support the content I think needs more exposure. I also re-steem to my followers, but I don't always see that make much difference. The fact is that Steemit is pretty small. You may not get a lot of random visitors, so you have to get out there.
Thanks for the advice and support on my posture. I will resist external pressures and only vote on content I feel needs to be seen by others.