One thing you missed is that the first five people to upvote get the majority of the curation reward. So if a post hits the 30 minute mark and there are already 20 upvotes your curation reward will be quite tiny (like you I don't know the details because I haven't gotten that much in curation rewards yet).
Your curation rewards also increase with your Steem Power, so the more Steem Power the more curation rewards. Good reason to power up that STEEM.
Overall very informative post though, and I love the spreadsheet.
thanks for the correction @moneyinfant, you know more than me about how the curation payouts (mine are like .005 or something like that) lol... I focused on the author payouts since that seems to be the best way "early" here to get bigger. And yes I totally agree with you about the SP and the need to get more steem power... I am exploring many aspects and thinking about different strategies all the time because that's the way to make a difference here. Thank you very much for the input and comments...
and ps... glad you liked the spreadsheet... I realize its not much to look at, but it gets the job done ;)