How quickly you forget.... Or maybe you didn't experience it the way many of us did.
Prior to the voting bots there were a select few who all voted each other first and sometimes a few others. There was absolutely no way to get visibility for unknown users, projects that wanted to get visibility, etc.
Currently, anyone can put their post on trending for the community to discover. If it is bad, it can be flagged. Those who are upset are mostly comprised of those who were a part of the select few and those who weren't here to see what it was really like.
The probem isn't the voting bots it's the lack of curation with both up and down votes.