it depends on the level of rules. On the basic level it can work to a high degree. For example take Bitcoin, basically it cannot be hacked unless two of the biggest mining camps join together for a 51% attack on the network to manipulate cash flows. The flip side would that they destroy their own basis of trust. Nobody would use Bitcoin anymore because one of the basic needs of Maslows pyramid is now in danger..
On a more complex level there is always some drawback with regulation, bureaucracy and wasting precious time.. you take freedom from intelligent, honest and trustworthy people for the sake of avoiding criminal activities, stupid data inputs which can harm a system..
In this case we talking about money and if there is a opportunity to silently plunder the reward pool with complex bot systems.. they simply will do. If you have no hard rules which regulate it by themselves you always need a police who is overwhelmed by all these activities.. why not imprint something on the blockchain.. immutable, automatically operated.
It is not so challenging to find a solution for 90% of abuse but for 95% or 99% like the self-upvote checkbox which is gone now in favor of Steemit. Sometimes you must swallow the drawbacks to vastly improve something for long term in my opinion. If we want real mass adoption there cannot be all doors wide open for every option and scammers.. which would destroy user experience.
To refer to the self-upvote, currently it's still possible but not offered when you publish a new post.. why not shut down this function completely? There are so many new people which slowly realizing the implications just after months or the negative impact.. so disabling such functions would help new people and prevent misuse from the beginning. We need less money options and more social experience.. it's not about tech savvy people here which control the cash flows against not tech savvy people in my eyes.