Thanks! I think you're building a nice, solid audience and seem to have a lot of genuine engagement on your posts. That will pay off eventually. The environment is really different here now that it was a few years ago. 

Communities are ultimately a good thing but they've changed the platform, fracturing the attention of the readership. Rewards and engagement are less focused on a small group of bloggers now and more spread out. It would have taken me many, many more years to build the audience I have if I would have started getting traction *after* communities were born. 

I really love this place. It's turned into more of an incubator/outlet for me now to test out ideas and make new friends (like you).