You deserve to be a much higher ranked witness in my opinion

Thanks for that, really appreciate the nice words.

You know, after talking with a few prominent witnesses, a couple of months ago, it was revealed to me that I'm a bit under the radar not because I won't be useful as witness, or worthy of a vote from a technical point of view, but apparently I'm still paying my dues because of my one and a half month hiatus - which happened exactly one year ago.

I was as high as 40th in the witnesses rank back then, and I had the support of some powerful people (including @ned) but then, in the middle of a flag war (much worse than the one still going on now) I decided to take a step back, and leave the platform. I gave my reasons and all that. One and a half month later I stepped back in, but it was a bit too late, from some people's point of view.

That position was interpreted as lack of loyalty.

I very much understand that, in the early days, every community values loyalty above any other values. As the community evolves, other things, like contribution and innovation may start to rank higher. There is a very interesting book, called "Reinventing Organizations", by Frederic Laloux, which describes organizations based on their "consciousness / awareness level" using colors. Every organization starts with a "red" level, in which loyalty is valued more than anything. Not surprisingly, one of the most common organizations "frozen" at this level is mafia :) One year ago - and even now, from a certain point of view - Steemit was like a closed mafia circle.

But it evolves, just like I tried to point out in the article. Slowly, but it does evolve.

So I'm not at all surprised, let alone frustrated about my witness position. It is what it is.

And I do what I can, with what I have. :)