I do however think the post promotion system is somewhat worthless - and I doubt anyone even really reads it for the most part. Would love to see data on trending page views vs promoted page views.

This is what I've been saying since the first time I saw Steemit. The promoted posts feature is a complete waste of money due to the current way it's setup. If they want anyone to put money into that, they need to figure out a way to get eyeballs on the promoted posts. You're better off running a Facebook ad to a post and having an outside monetization method on the post to make money from it then you are throwing away SBD on a promoted post here. Maybe if they made promoted posts as sticky posts in the trending section then you'd see people pumping more money into using it. Or make the default page after you click a tag go to the promoted section instead of trending.