Well, I will say we both occasionally use them, but only after a post has gotten "stuck in the mud" and isn't going anywhere, and only on a very limited basis. More for the upvotes than the rewards. It's psychologically MUCH easier to cast a vote for a post with 50 votes than 4. I think, in an ideal world, I'd love to see all steem accounts run by their owners and manually curating, but that ship has sailed.