I have to disagree with your first paragraph: The self-voters and vote-buyers take so much out of the system that there not enough left for honest users.
I see one posting, with a promised $0.0x reward, not paying out after the other. On payout day it drops from $0.0x to $0.00. I don't care about the penny. It's the lack of appreciation what hurts.
And it's the other way around as well: if I upvote then other person won't even get a single penny either. I even bought some steem to power up so my votes count. But with Steem at $5 I can't really buy enough steem to make a difference. The only thing that happened: I lost my new user delegation.
The combination of bit bots, self vote and hight steem price endanger the platform.
@krischik
I agree. That's why I opt out but keep posting.