Here's what I think on the comments front: yes and no. NO because of, as you said, each comment has a link BUT it's an internal link that wouldn't count as a click-out. To my understanding and I could be wrong since I've been out of the game a while, the quality of the link matters more than the existence of the link.

So that brings us to YES as numerous comments do have valid clickout links, such as links to reference articles and generally external sites. Those ideally matter.

In terms of followers, I'm on the fence. And the reason is that I'm running a similar test project trying to determine if the number of followers and engagement here on Steemit can directly correlate to a continuation of engagement off the platform. What I mean is my account is a shared account based on a website. We're relaunching the site soon and are looking to use Steemit as a vector to advertise and as well as the blog portion. Traffic should flow equally from the site to Steemit and from Steemit to the site. Before launching I'm equalizing the estimated number of Steemit followers (quality followers, not the auto-follow ones) and the number of followers I know the site will have (established community that once had a massive database of 30k+ members). If this works, it may inspire other startups to create a Steemit presence as a key part of their engagement campaign.

Therefore as I said, I'm on the fence on how much in-site followers matter vs the number of members Steemit has in general. I'd have to guess it'd be treated on the same level that let's say Instagram followers are treated by search engines but I cannot tell you what that level is.

Didn't mean to hijack your post with this essay response, great project and I'm going to follow you to see how it pans out.