I've been thinking about the same lately and done some calculations.
I'm in Bronze I and to refill 1 energy costs 1 DEC. So, if I stay loyal to my focus I get roughly 0.2 SPS as a reward for the win. Swapping 1 DEC for SPS would currently make 0.0269 SPS, so it feels like a pretty good deal even though it's gonna be staked(and I don't obviously win all the battles :D)
All in all my SPS and chest rewards have increased massively because of the update. One other thing I also see as a positive factor is because I'm now getting more chests(more Soulbound cards) my power is also starting to increase more, slowly but still getting me closer to Silver.
So power could be one thing to motivate to refill energy too.