If you check out my wallet ( you can actually check anyones it's all very transparent), you will see that powering up is good for voting power if you want to curate. Keeping your Steem as Steem is good for instant axcess to you rewards, while saving some is good for security I think....but I'm saying that's right. just search out some tags to help you out. Follow some creators asap so you get posts into your feed too. Have fun with it, rewards will follow.