Some very good questions. Here is how I see and use my vote.

1. We have services on Hive that helps automating your votes but do you use it or prefer voting manually? Why?
   • I manually vote. I am aware of a few of the non manual voting methods, but until my vote is in the value range of $50.00 dollars, I feel I can adequately vote on content I like and enjoy with out causing a post to be seen as having an excessive reward.
     
     
2. Has automating your votes worked out for you in supporting your favourite content creators and/or maximising rewards?
   • Can not answer that as I do not use them as of yet
     
     
3. If you are staking up continuously, do you seek to maximise return on your investment via voting/curating users on Hive? With all the bot voting that takes place are you able to maximise your curation rewards?
   • I am staking up continuously, as for maximizing my return via voting not really. For Hive to Thrive we need to have content the average user finds enjoyable, I see myself as an average user and a long term investor.
     I am looking five to seven years down the road, with my haphazard method of voting I am still earning about 9% ROI per the hivestats page today on curation. When one adds on and in any votes on comments made, or votes on post made, I am sure that number is well exceeded. In additions to the curation rewards, and author rewards, there is also the powered up interest reward from just having Hive powered up.
     
     
4. Or do you feel like it's worth voting others consistently everyday only if you had a large stake?
   • Absolutely not. To succeed on Hive, or on any social media system one must build a following. To count on only one persons vote is foolhardy. I am nowhere close to being a whale or a large account, I do however vote on a lot of smaller newer accounts, and I still vote on those accounts I have found and enjoy the content of. By voting and commenting on accounts I have found enjoyable over my travels through first steem, and now Hive, I have received votes from some of them on my post, and I have had people that also follow those I do come over and give my content a vote on occasion just because they saw a comment I made they liked. SO no matter how big or small your vote is use it, do not let it sit idle put it to work for yourself.
     
     
5. What is your one big reason to power up your HIVE tokens today?
   • The future, it was almost 3 years ago that I was gifted with 15 SP from steem. I have only managed to invest personal money of about 100 dollars. My Hive account is now getting pretty close to 6,000 HP. So with some time and effort and a hard fork, the future of growth is looking pretty good.
     
     
6. How do you think the overall experience of voting can be improved further on HIVE?
   • For up votes I think the system works pretty well, down votes I still have an issue with and think that system is in need of a serious over haul, but I am in the minority in that respect so I live with it.

Hope it helps, my views only on your questions, representing no one but myself, and not a guide to voting. Voting is a personal choice, how one uses their vote is their business. There is no right or wrong way to use a vote, it is a choice we make, even the choice to not vote is not wrong.