Thanks for your comment! I wasn't aware of @steem-bounty, but I'm going to go check it out now. From what you say about it, maybe I should have put a bounty on this post.
I agree about commenting on others' posts. That was what I was trying to say in my "Option 3" in the main post, and, in all honesty, I haven't been very good about it yet. I'm trying to change that now, by engaging more with other people's content, even if it's not strictly related to the subjects I tend to write about.
I suspect that getting noticed just takes a lot of work and a lot of patience, too. Like most things in life!