Social media such as Youtube is definetely the way to attract the large masses, perhaps also traditional blogs as well (from the blogs more sophisticated people are attracted because those people tend to love reading).
If you think about it, though, who are going to be the people who are watching/reading that stuff in the first place? It's only going to be a very small percentage of people who are currently paying attention or are interested in cryptocurrencies in the first place which is an even smaller percentage in regards to the human population. The people who watch that have probably already have gotten wind of Monero in some form and if they haven't gotten into Monero then, they probably won't get in now if some random guy, who doesn't have that much influence to begin with, says some nice words about Monero.
Especially not 200 xmr or ~400 usd; but I mean everyone is free to do what they want with their money, but I for one won't be contributing to such things when we could be helping fund our devs for other stuff to be done/help support their salaries, which is already below what is normal for the skill set they bring to the table.
I think you are right. Devs deserve more. I also think that the PR strategy is a win/win situation for hodlers, devs and newcomers. Developing both ideas, or more, I think, is the way to go. Later, everyone would fund (or not) the most resonating projects for everyone. This way we are giving oportunities to act and grow
