Your general hypothesis is correct. Effort does not correlate to upvotes in many cases. Headlines help because that is what most people scan. Also, being on an auto upvote trail helps. My biggest upvoted posts are not usually the ones I put the most effort into. So I have changed my posting. What I post now is information that is most useful to myself. It is difficult to find consistent useful information on hive. So when I find something or learn something that I want to remember, that's what I post about. As far as what I upvote, it typically is posts by bloggers who follow me and who I follow. We seem to share similar interests and goals. I am learning that the most profitable parts of Hive are not related to blogging, so I do not spend as much time or worry about my posts being upvoted.