I upvoted because I believe every one deserves a fair shot, but throughout my stay I've observed that it's indeed fair based on the preference of the readers. Even though posts have a high quality, it doesn't really equate to a huge number of upvotes. It takes a bit of luck, a bit of skill, and a huge amount of influence.

Admittedly, all of my posts so far is part of a larger experiment to see which type of content would trend. I've tried posting long posts, short posts, photos, artwork, etc. I'm still collating my findings, and I do share the sentiment of the users who are discouraged by the reception of their posts.

I feel that if you want to have a more effective experiment, you should post a content that you feel deserve upvotes instead of just pointing out that it's a test post to see how much upvotes it draws.