I agree with the sentiments of the OP, and DSN has made some very good points too.
I'm seeing the increase in traffic, and the demand for better / more reliable feeds. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe all of us witnesses are relying on free feed data sources. Perhaps witnesses need to consider subscribing to paid services for feed data. I have no idea what the cost of that would be, but one thing's for sure we've seen much unreliability of various sources like yahoo and yunbi. We also need to be sensitive to what the expectations of the Chinese community are regarding feed prices and sources.
Using paid services for feed data does come with some risk however. It's important to make sure we maintain as much diversity of sources as we can, and not be at the mercy of a centralized source to provide price data.
We in the west think in terms of "free market competition" as a means of keeping different sources accurate. I'm not sure how well that works in the Chinese market or how much influence their government has in price accuracy. It may be similar to our situation with the precious metals markets here in the US, as we know how manipulated they are as well. Precious metals prices here don't really reflect what the free market wants them to be, hence many refuse to sell at such artificially low prices.
Is that the same in China, or are prices closer to buyers and sellers expectations?
I'll say this for the record: if witness pay is increased, even if only by 2X I will put the entire increase into server upgrades and possibly a paid feed source. I also recognize I need to take on more python coding if nothing more than to stay on top of this feed issue and lessen my dependence on wackou's bts tools. They're great, but he has his hands full with family and steem, and publishing and documenting his changes to his tools aren't always a priority which puts me at a disadvantage. I need to be more proactive about that.
I also see the interest and demand for the BitShares DEX on the rise. I've been waiting for such signs. Activity has stagnated, mostly due to the excitement of steem's arrival. Now that is smoothing out and with the political pressure increasing on the Chinese front along with the global push to rid the planet of cash, we need to be more attentive to changes in demand on the DEX.
Another thing we all need to be aware of is that once PeerPlays launches there will be even more demand for capable witnesses which will increase competition for talent. I suspect PP witness roles will not only be more demanding but will also be more lucrative. I am very anxious to finally learn the details so I can make a decision on whether to put my hat in the ring on PeerPlays. I only hope we're given adequate time from when the info is provided to when PP wants to launch. I HATE last minute rush jobs.