Like you I think the voting and reward process is not quite ideal.
I do think that the fact that votes are weighted by money makes a big difference and does solve many problems. However it also creates new ones.
I think voting should be kept very simple. I don't want to have to understand an algo when I vote. I also consider voting a right that has been earned (in this case by my SP).
So i think we should just vote for whatever we want and get rewarded if we do vote at all.
Any time the curation rewards that are governed by some rule or algo, I have a financial incentive to vote against what I like and towards what the algo wants me to do. Since we are using votes to measure quality we are now screwing up the ultimate metric on the network.
Thank you for your detailed feedback my friend! I agree on the need of simplicity / usability. I also agree on the fact that a vote rewards quality (however quality was defined). But I don´t agree on the equality of votes. A bot who voted for an article without even opening it should not be rewarded in the same way as a user who effectively consumed content and then 'decided' to vote.
Maybe I am too romantic....? :-))