the 2 things you mention are not 100% accurate.
if you vote a post within the first 20 minutes you might not get any reward.
(you wrote Vote as early as possible after the content is posted.)
you wrote Don’t vote on content that is already popular
i experienced the opposite:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@knozaki2015/my-upvote-was-worth-5-06-usd-25300-or-how-to-earn-the-maximum-curation-reward