I am of the idea that as much as upvotes are welcome and all... this, the conversations, the jokes, the gifs or what have you, carry a lot of value too. I've never think to myself...
Oh, i wanna go say hi, but my upvote is trashed... it's always trashed.. hence why I delegate most of my VP to helpie and support as many people as i can that way.
But I know where you are coming from.
I understand that and my upvote is always trashed to as I do not have a lot of SP. But I like to show support to the people that make good posts and are trying, like me, to teach something through their posts.
It seems that there are not many conversations on posts much anymore unless it is someone trying to get noticed by a whale and trying to get that upvote. It is either a "Thanks" or "Nice Post". Like many people have said before and will continue to say it "Networking" is the key to Steemit and I am trying to do much more of that going forward.