so I got another reply from someone that it’s actually very likely that one starts “ranking” immediately, but that there’s a difference between ranking and ranking well…
apparently ranking well has more to do with the number of people who link to your content rather than how good the content might be on its own
oh well 
just seems like no matter how much effort “little sites like mine” put in, there’s no way to ever break the glass ceiling…and the effort is consistent, thorough, educated, high-quality, original content effort we’re talking about here…
back to the drawing board…