RE: Two Quick Newcomer Questions
Hello Local North,I believe i may have the answers you seek.
When the dollar amount is crossed out it means that the author has decline the rewards payout. Up votes will still affect the posts ranking. When you make a post you will see the option for rewards. you can choose between a payout if 50%SP/50%SBD, 100% SP or decline the payout. 
When a comment is grayed out it means that it has received more down votes/flagged than it has received in up votes. Getting down voted by someone with a lower reputation than you will not have an effect on your reputation but being down voted by someone with a higher rep will affect your reputation. Down votes usually occur on post that are plagiarism, spam, or some kind of abuse like a person or bot just being a jerk/troll.
I hope this helps.
@pimpemon that makes a lot of sense! Thank you so much (again) for sharing your knowledge! You are my Steemit guru! :)
Any time but i wouldn't go as far as to say i am a guru since I have had the same questions and only found out recently. If i am wrong i hope someone can correct me. Also don't forget to check the Upvote post when posting. It my seem like self promotion and narcissist and some people may frown upon it but the option is there so you might as well use it. It does help get your post get ranked a little higher and hopefully more noticed and it will also help you with your payout rewards, maybe not so much now but when you get more SP. I was resistant at first to just upvote my own posts/comments but for reasons i mentioned i decided to do it anyways, plus it's what all the big dogs do.
Oh!! I was also wondering about self upvoting, but thought the same thing about it being kind of narcissistic. That is very helpful!
Haha ok, maybe not a guru, but you are very knowledgeable for beginners questions :) Thank you!