Agree that was a crazy long post. Here are the answers you're looking for:
Q1. This changed 7 months ago - from 2 years to 3 months. I don't know what the hard fork number was.
Q2. Payout is always 7 days after a post. The first 30 minutes decides what proportion of the total payout goes to the author and the curators.
Q3. You will get a payout for any vote up to and including the 7th day. The marginal return you get for your post reduces the later you cast it. Also if you vote within the first 30 minutes the author gets a larger cut of your vote. Generally, people like to upvote between 20-40 minutes after the post has been posted for optimal payout results.
Thanks you! here take my upvote :D
and whats the downside if i give an upvote after a day and not after 20-40 min. Looks like after the first 30 min it plays a zero role if I give it after 40 mins or 1000 mins.
The later you vote the lower the proportion of the curation reward you get as a whole. It's a balancing act in terms of not voting to early or too late if you want the optimal reward.
All else being equal you want to be one of the earlier voters on any post to get a higher weighting on the curation reward.
Steem rewards you for curating content through votes. The earlier you vote the better. If you vote too late then steem punishes you for it marginally. To prevent bots from early voting on everything steem penalises votes in the first 30 minutes.