I personally believe whales should give chances to newbies like you to grow first instead of self-upvote.
I have heard many stories of it who abused the reward pool for their own lifestyle as priority and that is why the flag wars started.
This platform is about community and creativity.
I am sure that when a whale gives himself / herself a 20-80 set (20% for self upvote and 80% to help reward others in the great community to help everyone benefit) there would not have a flag war at the first place.
I personally for one do not favour 100% selfishness.
However I agree with your RC ideas. The higher the whales are the harder for them to earn more RC or the faster they will deplete their RC , especially for self-upvotes.
Best Regards
Daily Bread Food Bank