I will probably never invest 100's of thousands, but a little bit every month, it adds up after a while.
I agree sitting there with 100 percent voting power is a waste. A lot of people don't maximize their SP to it's fullest extent.
Even if you are making 5 cents a post there are little things you can do, like post on busy.org and use the busy tag, the busypay bot gives you like a 25 cent vote. Start posting on steemhunt too I make more steem there than anywhere. And keep adapting, a year ago i was raking it in on the meme thing, what was that called dmania? I just keep adjusting my steem strategy as the steem ecosystem changes. Even things like making sure you follow active accounts, if the list of people you follow is the same as 6 months ago you miss out on new and up and coming steemians. I just see so many saying steem is too hard and poor them but they are rigid in how they good about everything. Be totally flexible.