I did it for free for a while, but it is pretty hard going when the hour or two spent scripting, searching, and down-voting could be spent producing 2/3 average posts for 100k+

540,000 is a lot, particularly to refs who do very little. Make it performance related (DV count?) and that could lead to flag abuse.

The system can likely be changed at will, so let's see what happens and then voice concerns with something to back them up with.