If upvoting yourself, self curation, is bad, then the very simple solution is for steemit to stop paying for self curation. In other words, make it so an author cannot receive curation rewards and author reward on the same post. No need to get upset and start judging others with penalty flags.

Until then, the guy did invest a lot into steem and he's following he rules, I guess. If the rules change he has the option to sell his steem and move on or stay in the community. It's his choice.

I find that when I submit a new post my upvote is automatically included. I must then quickly un-vote my own post. That doesn't make sense.