First of all - great post @inquiringtimes! I have a few comments / thoughts...

The reward fund of STEEM should be fairly constant, so if there are fewer votes then that would mean that each vote would be worth MORE than it would be if there are more votes overall in the system.

Since that doesn't seem to be the case then maybe there are the same amount or even more votes being cast overall but they are being spread out among lots more posts. If that's the case then that's probably a good thing since it will help spread out the value more evenly, but it will make it harder than it was to grow a following and grow your rewards (which again I think is fine - easy money never lasts!)

The other problem of new users getting discouraged because they don't get much traction as quickly as they expect is really just an issue of unrealistic expectations. I see a few such replies in the comments on this post.

Sure if you got in super early this was possible, and the people who got in early and built big followings can post pretty much whatever they want and get a nice reward for it. Even though it's getting harder I think it's still REALLY easy to make money here as compared to anywhere else I know of.

Just need realistic expectations and you can't get discouraged by people who joined early and built a big following or have a ton of SP.