whether or not I should exchange them out for HIVE or keep them
I think that depends on the environment and what your short and long term plans are. I used always to swap HDB for Hive while I was building my account, so I could power up and increase the income. However, once I reached my Hive target (Orca) and the difference through % earned through curation and % earned through interest on HBD is not so big, plus there is the benefit of having a liquid token that can be more quickly accessible if the price suddenly shoots up, I have changed my strategy.