I'm still trying to determine this as well. I'm thinking one good post a day is likely to do better than posting a bunch of posts. This is a hypothesis I haven't had a chance to test yet.

Practice, Practice, Practice...

Where your study falls apart is that a lot of the big people have bots that automatically up vote certain people because they have liked their post in the past. This may not be pervasive but I've read since I started here that it does exist. Inherently that should be their choice, but it does throw a wrench into trying to predict some things.