"... I love the idea of being rewarded for my comments and your advice will change where I spend some of my focus."
I reckon you have succinctly stated that there are more valuable rewards than $.02 votes. I have pretty much followed the same course you outlined you have, and I have no regrets, as I have become introduced to many good people, and their ideas and posts by that process.
I once had a post that generated <$100 in rewards, and that surprised me to the degree that I suffered no little cognitive dissonance, as the post was quite critical of the rewards system and ways that Steemit is designed that encourage financial manipulation - exactly the opposite result of what I expected to get from the post!
As a result of that I learned that just speaking my mind was probably every bit as potentially financially rewarding as pandering to whales, and, frankly, I am simply unable to long make pretense of interest in matters less valuable to me than fascinating ideas. I hope you find the same to be true, as your interactions with authors you like is exactly (IMHO) what social media is about.
Gaining some rewards for doing it is just icing on the cake. I bend nails and smash my thumbs for a living, and expect to continue that until I finally am too physically broken. Hopefully by then Steemit will have matured to the point where the rewards distribution is far less concentrated, and what little I need will be forthcoming.
Until then, interaction with agile minds and innovative folks is my dearest reward. Hopefully that is also preparation for that future when I can no longer work construction.
"We have to balance things so that the entire ocean rises."
True dat!