I've not invested real world fiat for this world fiat, so my wallet has cost me nothing. One of my first goals was to be able to give my 2 cents (...vote. I had no clue about the dust vote thing, just thought it would be fun because of the saying...)

• Then I learned about the 2 cent dust vote and realized I had been wasting most of my votes this whole time unless I voted on something that had over 2 cents payout already.
  • After reading about the dust vote problem situation, I purchased enough delegation to get me up to the 2 cent vote. I wanted to be able to give a vote that paid regardless if anyone else voted with me... All was hunky dory for awhile. I could upvote any dust votes to reach payouts. My thinking wasn't so I would make anything, that was just a nice side benefit. My thinking was, without my vote their vote was wasted. If I could upvote it past dust, they at least make something back on curation... And that's the reason I bought into @dustsweeper and even add a note to all posts that your votes won't be dust...
    • Then someone found out the vote might need to actually be 3 cents. And the price dropped, so now I still can't non-dust vote.
• All very frustrating, but I'll keep plugging and chugging...
  • Now my goal is for steem to rebound and I should comfortably be able to give a 3 cent vote...

I've not noticed people dropping their voting power, but I can see it would be very frustrating if dustsweeper is the reason they do it...

BTW... Welcome back!