The Steem Pope is here with answers! Some of them might even be right!

Your vote power diminishes with each upvote you make. If you upvote 10 times per day, every day, your vote power should regenerate to 100% each day. If you upvote more than that, your vote power will not refill all the way, and the amount of rewards to assign with your upvote will diminish. It's not really something you need to worry about. You can see your vote power percentage at steemd.com/@[your Steemit user name] or steemdb.com/@[your Steemit user name].

The surplus followers could be from any number of things. Bots, newbies who try to follow everyone, people who have since quit Steemit, people who liked something you posted about but have since lost touch, or who knows what all else. The few who interact are the worthwhile ones, and don't worry about the rest.

People who follow whales often hope to be an early upvoter on their new posts so they can earn curation rewards when more people upvote it after them. As a minnow, you won't earn much playing that game, but many do it anyway. Remember that if you think a post has earned enough rewards, you can certainly withhold your upvote despite enjoying the content.

Does that help at all?