A few years ago, when I didn't run my own node, I was voting for all Top20 witnesses as I didn't know anyone... In those days, I was thinking how 30 votes was too much and how we should have a maximum of 5 votes to cast...
Since then, I met a lot of "witnesses" in real life and engaged with many here on HIVE... Today, I'm in a similar position to you, if I would vote for all that I know, I would need 20-30 votes more, so I went in a similar direction... Mostly vote for witnesses out of Top20 as my vote means to them a lot more than to Top20...
I do believe that witnesses are a lot more than block producers and that's why it's important to support people who are engaging, curating, creating apps, gathering the community, leading the way, and showing by example...
Sounds like we had similar experiences, indeed once you find more people quickly that 30 votes is not enough.
So true, they deserve support as well.