Hey @onthewayout.
I've been looking at curation quite a lot recently. One point to consider is that you can earn more than 25% curation on your upvote under the current system. An explanation of this can be found here:
https://steemit.com/curation/@miniature-tiger/an-illustrated-guide-to-curation-from-the-simple-to-the-complex-with-real-examples-from-past-posts-part-1
For a vote of say 0.50c there are opportunities out there to gain higher curation rewards while voting on quality posts. The ocd posts are one such example:
https://steemit.com/curation/@miniature-tiger/curation-rewards-analysis-ocd
Another point to take into account is that the value of your upvote on your own articles is higher than 100% of that upvote (for a similar reason to the above). You get 75% author rewards + X% curation rewards. If you upvote first on your own post (for 0.50c) and it goes on to make say $2 then you receive "50% of upvote" curation rewards on your own post. If it goes on to make $8 then you get to "100% of upvote" curation rewards on your own post.
Rejigging your analysis, purely as an example, let's say you:
- Use 3 of your 10 votes per day on your own articles (write write write!) and they make $2 each so you receive 125% of upvote (75% author + 50% curation)
- Use 2 of your 10 votes per day on your own comments (so a little self voting) for 100% of upvote (75% author + 25% curation)
- Use 3 of your votes per day on curation opportunities and manage to make 50% of upvote rewards on average.
- Use 2 of your votes on comments that people make on your articles (split down between people into smaller votes) or on articles you like (but fairly carefully - those which have low current payout and outside 30 mins) - managing to average "25% of upvote" curation rewards.
Some fairly conservative assumptions, although some author work involved. And OK, still half of your votes are headed to yourself (but mainly on your own articles). But purely as a baseline example this averages to 77.5% - your initial investment. Hopefully your posts go on to make more than $2 which would then give you some legroom to go out and vote on any articles that you like or to use the power of your new upvote in other ways.
This isn't to discount the 50/50 idea - I haven't put all my thoughts together on that yet. But as it won't be around for a while in any case just some thoughts to make the delegation work under the current system.
You understand very well how the curation rewards work. I did not want to complicate the analysis by adding the impact of later votes.