Hello @firepower, it's been a while I was away for nearly 5 or 6 months, of course I will come do something and go, but I wasn't so involved with steemit due to uni. When I came back this past week I found myself the same question, and wondering how to recover form the time I had lost, and also I am aware it will take me a while to get back to the amount of engagement I had, though I noticed steemit has changed. I've been struggling myself with what to post and what to do to get back on track I've used bots myself before and also used them on my friends, I wasnt sure if it will help me or my friends the truth is that it does get you attention and helps you getting views somehow, since there are so many posts these days.

Thinking back I wasn't always using bots, in fact my most popular post got to hot even without the need of bot, but this was back in between hard fork 15/17. So perhaps things got different now.
There is a lot for me to learn, and somehow it got me a little depressed the fact that many people pay to vote and show that as a solution to those problems.

It is sad, I am still posting my heart out since I came here because I love writing, though we all want revenue for our hard work. Thank you for your post really helpful and informative.