Thank you for your insight ! This is very interesting to have some information from people who succeeds on Steem ! But instead of chasing the whales to get some, I really think that enjoying the platform for what it is (a social network), with deep strong connection with Blockchains and cryptocurrencies make it enough !
And then, if some come with it, that's a bonus, but I think it is going to pervert the system if everybody just run after a whale upvote, favorising spammer and others.
But this is just my thought, I have been there for less than a month :)