This is an awesome comment!
This is already a discussion someone will come back to, and read because it is interesting and because you clearly care. This is really cool! And I do believe these discussions add value to you, me, and of course HIVE.
Even if I am going to pull back on the downvote project, I will obviously still be open to use the DV in the future because of the balance you described; balance is important.
Circling back to some things you said about down voting. I think hiding the downvote button and making some documentation that it is for advanced users seems like a good idea.
I say this because they are inherently different.
For Example:
• 1% upvote often goes unnoticed
• 1% downvote tends to have some type of reaction
One is way more influential than the other. To me they are not comparable and they are also not inverses of each other. They are very different things and I do think that is pretty interesting.
I hope someone picks you up on some of your ideas. I don't have the skills to do the things you described but tomorrow is a new day. And maybe I will have those skills one day and we can do something cool. Is it likely? Who knows? But it is fun to dream about new things!