Yeah you need to get back to those chats, quite boring when you're not around! :P
Hope you find the time to soon.

But yeah, many have asked me why I reward some users more than others, and while I may not always have gotten the trust factor right, those that I have supported the most have been the ones that have remained so I'm happy how that turned out. This isn't even about powering down which many seem to think is what I mean by it, it's just about being here and providing anything they possibly can offer to the blockchain, even if the majority is "just" curation. In hindsight if they had powered down it would've been better for their stake and curation if they had bought back now, maybe next time.

So what I'd tell new people is get to know others, become friends, if they share the same goals as you here then being more friendly with curation is great cause you'll always be around and distributing the reward pool together. While there's still a lot of "bad" mining going on on Steem it's insane considering how it won't care, there'll always be buy support and people gambling on the price. Those who earn Steem easily and don't believe in it's long term existence are those that easily sell it and like you said, now find themselves having a hard time getting that stake back from the pool.