I agree that much of steem and steemit is super frustrating.

The way I understand this though is that it's a protection mechanism within the blockchain protocol when the SBD debt limit has gone over 10% to keep from over-printing steem. For that reason the price feed is currently frozen at .21, and will remain that way until those conditions change in regards to debt ratio.

For that reason the dollar amounts shown on posts will not equal what is actually paid out until steem either rises above $.21 or the supply of SBD is reduced to the point it is no longer greater than 10% of steem's total market cap.