It would seem that all of Steemit is experiencing a type of buyers remorse that will hopefully abate when the reward pool stabilizes...that still remains to be seen. On the issue of self voting comments, I would liken it to the Feds in the sense that they are taking money from the left pocket and placing it into the pocket on the right which does nothing because the rewards remained in the SAME PANTS!!!!!

It's gonna look like a victory cause trending is down, but we just handed a lot higher of a percent to the biggest authors of what is now a much smaller pool for everyone.

I thought this is exactly what the HF was meant to fix but again I am still learning and am probably missing something. Hope your post is able to shed some light on this issue with the whales and higher ups (developer types) and they begin to vote, follow and resteem according.....time will certainly tell.