In saving SP, one can invest in their future posts and expand their notoriety on the steemit platform. When you think about it, steempower allows you to not only save, but boost your posts over time to be seen and upvoted by others. This can also bring the traction of downvotes, but to be frank that is the least of a minnow's worries.
Powering up posts 100% also shows an interest in the platform, and if you can hold out from powering down for 6 months at a time, you will not only see your savings and reputation built up considerably, you will also see that the effect of your power down is much greater. The push and pull of powering up and down is completely balanced, and the more SP one has the more options they have in withdrawing liquid steem.
This simplistic beauty in powering up comes with its lack of detriment, one can literally only succeed powering up 100%. The only thing that can stray users from powering up 100% is the worth of SBD, but steem will always be consistently worth more in terms of exchanging to fiat...and in terms of being able to instantly power up and withdraw. SBD is so volatile that it becomes tempting to make all posts 50/50, but refraining from that for solid periods of times (such as 3 months) or even making every other post 100% powered up insead of all 50/50, that will help the ecosystem this platform has created.
I am personally doing my best to put back in to what I have taken so much from... I am not going to power down for at least 6 months, and all of my posts will be powered up 100%. I want to save legitimate crypto earnings for myself, and that comes with consistency over time (as does anything that leads to success). I won't be powering down until at least my birthday on May 4th, and hopefully by that time I will have reached a few more reputation levels and acclaim on this platform in the way I'd like.
Who doesn't want to eventually be a whale? I see mountains of steem and I can climb those mountains, nothing is impossible...it just takes time. See you at the top!