I can't argue with any of your takeaways. There are many better contest structures though. I think the biggest problem with this was precisely that it did not require any effort or creative thought on the part of the contest entrants. You might think that would be a plus, that by only requiring a follow/resteem that MORE people would enter, but here on Steem that is not the case in my experience. I am absolutely positive that if you did a contest with 100 SBD prize pool (and your contest actually had quite a bit more than this as total prize pool) and divided it up something like 50 SBD 1st place, remaining 50 divied up among some number of runners up (maybe 25/15/10 for 2nd through 4th, etc.) and turned it into some kind of creative contest e.g. think up a slogan, or come up with the concept for an advertising campaign, or any other creative contest assignment related to the brand, and you required contest entrants to make their own post with their entry & resteem the original contest post, you would have ended up with WAY more engagement and participation. EDIT lol I see you are already running a similar type contest and yes getting way more engagement :)