It is vote buying. But if it was a simple kickback everyone recieved then that in itself would raise massive awareness. Probably lead to sheep mentality though. People will just pick whoever is popular regardless of the actual use.
It's a tough one because the witness system is hard for people to care about. The majority of the smaller accounts are not investors and will never think like one. This will only get worse as time goes on.
Maybe instead of considering it buying votes. Consider it raising awareness through monetary gain.
The smaller accounts don't really impact the witness selection at all. If they have few VESTs, they have little influence on who is an active witness. I do think it's important to educate them for if/when their account does grow in value, but to me the risks of a wealthy whale who may not be a good actor for the network buying up votes is not worth the benefit of more people voting.
Oh although it is obvious now that you say it, I should have realized that myself. I guess I don't have any better solution than yours then. Education and awareness it is!