Similarly, people who wait to post good content and engage frequently on Hive or in tribes such as proof of brain or leofinance will find themselves obtaining less stake than those who were persistent also during the bear market or early stages of a new tribe.
This is an important point. There was always going to be a larger stake distribution during the early stages (technically still there now in the grand scheme of things) because there was hype, more discussions, and the content standard was finding its feet. It's not possible to quantify what was deemed as acceptable rewards on any real solid basis because nobody had a clue what we were really about.
I don't think people realise how reliable the consistent rewards are from commenting and engaging within the community, and if the time is spent mingling and getting to know other creators the stakes soon add up. Over time, with engagement within the community, you start to piece things together and you understand the platform more, which means it's easier to voice your opinion with quality and accuracy, which then helps with recognition (This is Proof Of Brain).
Posts are obviously a large factor in rewards and it can be hard to get recognition without having the solid basis of a following, but that's why the contests and projects like 
My personal efforts to delegate and distribute liquid POB are purely based on the fact that I know if people show up and keep on track, they'll see benefits in the long run from the compounding interest of the whole situation. There was a great comment made by 
Although, who cares about being a whale, too much responsibility and pressure... just show up and do your thing, and hopefully people will appreciate what you have to say (hopefully, sometimes they don't as well, balance is good).
RE: It only gets harder to earn proof of brain tokens as the value goes up