If i was a whale I would try and promote new people who joined and posted quality content. I would not self upvote. Simply curate looking for good content. for me its always Quality over Quantity.

Second thing I would advocate for the Steem BlockChain is removing the 7 day limit for payout. All quality content creators need to be kept entangled in the network. A seven day limit is a huge discouragement for anyone who aims to post quality content.