To be fair, I totally understand that those who invested will not want a change in the incentives structure, but doesn't it come down to whether Steem is a short-term cash cow, or a long-term social media platform?
Maybe if the economic incentives changed, self-voting on comments for visibility could seem more reasonable because in doing so, you would be sacrificing some profit for visibility. That feels like a more natural trade-off.
The difficulty of analysis isn't as severe as the flag disincentive problem. I work on many such tools as @steemreports.
If somebody only has a profit motive, trying to change their behaviour though appeals to morality or long-termism won't work as well as changing the economic incentives.