Steemit Help..

So far my experience here on Steemit has been a good one but I am still a little unsure of a lot of things. I believe I have the general idea understood but I had a question about up voting.

I notice people here can control how much of an up vote they are giving to people. Is that something you get to do after your reputation is a certain level or am I just missing something?

Also on payout I noticed I get paid for my articles a week after they were written. Will I continue to get paid out on that same article every week on any income made in the weeks time? So if I wrote on 7 days ago and one 21 days ago I would get paid out on any income on those articles on the same day?

Thanks for any help I am just trying to figure out the unknowns.