Awesome experiment.
I try to follow your guidance or instructions, whatever you call it, about comments. I can't say I have earned 25SP, but whenever I am regular, I have seen that I earn at least 5-6 SBD in a week, even more I think. Given my relative inexperience and low rep to start with, I think that's quite good.
In fact comments kept me alive for the first few weeks and had it not been for comments, I think it would have been much more difficult for me to maintain the motivation and focus. The initial earnings from comments gave me the impetus that I needed. And off course, comments gave me most of my followers.
Thanks for this awesome advise which I discovered pretty early in my Steemit journey.