Thanks for sharing your experience. I certainly understand that not everybody can afford to hang on to all the steem/SD they earn. A robust economy should be able to deal with that.
So I am not someone who has ever powered down STEEM. I have sold the portion of my rewards many times. I have also intentionally powered up quite a few times using those funds if I did not have need of it at the time.
That is a big show of faith. There are no guarantees as I often say but it could pay off big in the long term.