As I was doing research on the Hardfork 17 change proposals, I got confused whether these changes had already been decided on, or were going to seek community feedback before going into effect. It appears that the changes are still up for discussion so this infographic should be viewed as proposals, I believe. To be honest, it's confusing whether these changes are going to in fact occur, or are going to be discussed and potentially not going to occur. Any information about this would be beneficial.

please note: not every Hardfork 17 proposal change is represented in infographic. To be honest, the removal of rate limiting bandwith from the core consensus change I couldn't grasp. What does this actually mean?

As the infographic reminds you, it pays to engage with others.

My best advice to you as far as the upcoming changes are concerned is that by regularly engaging with other people's posts, your chances of being rewarded will go up. And by engaging, I mean providing useful/fun/informative/interesting comments, not "Good job bro". Comments are one of the main reasons Reddit became so valuable. The same is true for many other networks.

We can argue all day whether rewarding comments is good or bad in the long-term, but there's no better way to understand how this all will work than by experimenting with it.

If you want to read the official Steemitblog Hardfork 17 proposals go here:
https://steemit.com/steem/@steemitblog/steem-0-17-change-proposal-introduction

Drink your Kool-Aid kids.