Postss before the 07/26 hardfork were carried for a period of 24 hours before total was paid out. Since then it has changed to a 12 hour period. Also, the amount reflected was based on steem current & day average value, it had a price spike as high as $4 awhile ago. The $ amount shown is reflecting that still. It would be fairly accurate to say that the $20k posts we saw last week will be fairly on par with posts seeing today as the value has come down with the 7 day period required to convert steemdollars to steem. It would be nice to see the actual steem amount a post is being awarded as I do agree, it makes it appear as if posts are of less quality based on that alone