I agree with most of your post, but I think the proposal may be unnecessary.
- Whales should have equal opportunity to post and be rewarded for good content. They're community members just like anyone else.
- If whales self-vote too often it doesn't look good for perception so I think there is already a mechanism in place to prevent that. It will be likely other whales, dolphins & minnows would counteract whale self-voting and not vote for a self-voting whales often.
- Over time it's all about re-allocating the 10% distribution every year. If you self vote you can maintain your percentage relatively speaking, but other whales will be doing more to increase the value of the ecosystem. Although the whales that vote for others will dilute themselves and their % allocations will decrease gradually over time, they'll be getting a smaller percentage of a much bigger pie. Hence the incentives are already there to grow the pie.
Only the largest of the whales would feel much impact from this and regardless of what is actually happening, the perception of insiders rewarding insiders will happen. That is human nature. We have a TRUSTLESS system here, so why rely on needing to trust that the whales act in the ways they should?