I read Tim Cliff's article, too ... and it didn't sound like he realized he was giving away the deep, dark secrets of Steemit when he wrote it. But yes, it certainly got a lot of attention. Like thousands of others, I had no idea votes of less than $.02 were essentially flushed away like used toilet paper.

As with you, it changed the way I use my votes to other people. It certainly changed how I see the way people vote me. I have really tried not to see a $.01 (or less) vote from someone who can clearly give more as being something other than a big steaming FU, but a recent incident has made that margin of tolerance lots harder to find. (Not relevant here. Moving on.)

I have three accounts. One has a $.01+ vote. The other is basically brand new. So I go through the posts and comments I upvoted from them and "crop dust" those myself with a vote from my main account which can drop $.02+ and boost theirs into some kind of value.

When I need to "burn votes" from those accounts just before I call it a day, I go to accounts I want to support and put these tiny votes on posts / comments with $$$ already on them.

That's done with the attitude of "maybe it helps, maybe not, but I tried." It has certainly strengthened my resolve to get the value of these two recent accounts into "payout territory" as quickly as possible.

I am glad the truth of this situation came out -- even if it was mostly by accident. Sad though to know back when I got to the point where I could upvote someone and actually see something change ... it meant nothing.