Word, and I say this as one of the lurkers (I'm trying to be better this year about calling out bits and pieces I really enjoyed but in the Yahoo groups/FF.net/LJ era I left very few comments) - kudos definitely give people like me a little bit more of a voice.

idk if it's because I don't write much, and consequently don't really think of myself as a writer or define myself by my writing, but even a kudos email in my inbox brings me a little spark of happiness. The only time I get a little bummed out about comments is when something is for an exchange and the person I wrote the piece for never says anything (which unfortunately has happened the last two times I've done them, sigh), but that's kind of a different context.