@onepercentbetter, thank you for sharing your experience, frustrations and research with us!
Like you, I had my fair share of exceeding-bandwidth limit issues when I started 35 days ago. Inspired this - hehe
Only recently I began to figure it out with the help of @davemccoy telling me about steemd.com!
One of the things I was doing was treating an "Upvote" more a "Like", "Wink", an acknowledgement, rather than a "Vote". Used up my bandwidth, plus it caused by Voting Power to drop!!
For improved VP, their suggestion is yours ... "Patience - go take a break, do some other stuffs."
I refrained from participating on Steemit for 2 days, VP doubled and bandwidth filled up. Since then, I am being more selective in my Votes and increasing quality and quantity Comments. The numbers are looking healthy now!
Thanks again for your info!
you can use up to about 20 votes at 100% weightage per day then it will recharge the next day.
Yeah patience still the best solution for the bandwidth issue.