I have to say that even the cost to your voting power is in practice a zero cost. There is the lost opportunity for the curation rewards that would have otherwise taken place... but the resource is regenerating anyway, and for a large account, the lost opportunity is worth the damage that you can cause...

The flagging has settled on people who sponsor shares... I guess the tactic is to choke the new shares, then move onto the recipients of the votes and then onwards from there. I'm not sure, but it does appear to be a tactical move to slowly target various holders and not the whole system at once.