When I apply "best practices" as a rehabber and landlord I am generally rewarded by stable rents and restored property value.

I consider myself a bit of a risk taker and agree with your mentality @Manny Rodriguez  that with great risk comes great reward.  

It has been the most rewarding experience for me thus far.

Rather, I plan to focus on rewarding long term tenants who pay on time with rent discounts for new leases (higher discounts for longer leases ala Mike Butler) and upgrades (really, things I mostly plan to improve anyway).

He was less successful dabbling in the eugenics of race, proposing financial rewards for the poor and those he deemed genetically disadvantaged -- that’s code for black -- if they volunteered for sterilization.There is always risk of overreach when people venture outside of their skill set and into other fields.

Over the years we've learned the hard way that lenience rarely has rewards and more often comes back to haunt you.Hopefully, you've learned your lesson on screening.  

This is risky and provides little to no income to rely on until you can sell and hopefully reap the rewards.

I have been reading up comments, forums on Bigger Pockets, and it's truly been the most rewarding experience in terms of knowledge gained not just with REI, but with  how to make money generally. 

But big risks gets big rewards, right??

That's a pretty bad risk/reward scenario.