The only time I ever followed a curation trail was very short lived (it was the #newbieresteemday trail) and I didn't get any curation rewards at all and it completely drained my voting power. At the time I was very new so I had almost no SP to vote with. Do you find that the return on curation rewards is higher or lower if you use a trail? I don't really like following them just because I'd rather manually curate and save my autovotes for authors I've handpicked, but maybe I'll give it another shot if it doesn't go as terribly as it did last time.
It actually lowers my personal rewards because more people are sharing in the 'pool', but I encourage it anyway. If I was a greedy miser, I'd of never set the trail up to begin with ;) There are a bunch of good trails out there on steemauto if that's something you're seriously considering. We are currently ranked #42 (good number, I know) and it's almost all just family members. Of course it is open to anyone. I suggest finding one that suits your style. If that's us, great! If not, there surely is one that does :P
Hmm, well, now that I have a delegation I've been spending a lot of time on here manually curating, so if I'm going to follow a trail, it's not going to be for a couple of months. I also just like having the ability to set up my own friends on steemauto. I've had some pretty good returns that way and it's obviously awesome to support friends. If I end up taking a break on here I'll probably jump on a trail.