Truthfully, I had to go to steemworld and have a quick look at how many followers I have, simply out of curiosity.  It is, as you say, pretty irrelevant; what's more important is your *active* followers.  I think many begin their steemit journey looking up towards the 'big guys' in the hopes of being taken care of...sugar whale style :), and they also do the skin-crawling "follow me, I follow you" business, but hopefully, at some point they have a paradigm shift and realize that it's genuine commenting and the process of developing their community here that is so important to their growth.  I've chosen to help others here and through that process have developed a community of followers that I'm happy to call my friends.

Thanks for the post; hopefully it won't fall on deaf ears :)  Cheers!