Spot on @alphacore! It is illogical to see that a declined post is getting upvotes worth hundreds of dollars. Why would anyone do that? I mean those votes could have gone to another author who hadn't delined payout.
I think the people who upvote popular posts/authors only are the people who upvote these posts too out of their casual voting habits.
I'd say it is better to curate a post by a minnow than to upvote on a declined payout post. Thanks for the message. I resteemed to get it across my followers