lol, I don't know where I was trying to go with anything

The core emotion of analyzing Steem.

If I understand correctly, it is similar to trying to determine the cost of true curation against best ROI.

It's sort of the reverse of that. It's trying to quantify how much my personal enjoyment of true curation is worth to me. (Or curation plus community-building if you want to separate them.)

I've made a lot of money bonus whoring on the internet for the last fifteen years. I would have no problem heartlessly maximizing ROI if that was what I wanted; I know because I've done it many times before. But this other stuff is fun, and there's a lot less of that around than money.