That is an interesting way to do things, and it's nice that @smooth reached out to you on the chat to correct you.
Getting eyes on posts is so important, because people pay attention to the trending large payout posts and even if the big payout is removed after a while it still has the benefit of having sent more views and many more small upvotes from minnows and dolphins. Most people don't have time to sift through the new posts not in their feeds and so one 'whale' vote brings a lot of exposure and name recognition.
Couldn't agree more @jamtaylor