I just hope this move doesn't cause the platform to feel more centralized
Moderators are part of the community, not employees. So I don't see how that could be more centralized.
Utopian can only improve the guidelines and the tools to better assess quality, as we constantly do, while trying to lower subjectivity, which is a component you can't and don't want to deny entirely.
I don't mean that the community would actually become more centralized, all I am just suggesting that it would "feel" more centralized.
With the change in how the bot works, moderators have more power then they did before. The more selective the platform becomes; the more sway a moderator's decision has over who gets a vote and who doesn't. If a moderator has a bias against a contributor, then it becomes harder for the contributor to override that bias.
Luckily, there are things like the discord channel and the help channel to combat this potential problem. All that being said, I do understand why the changes were made to the bot and I support these changes. Sometimes though it is worth talking about the potential downsides to a decision so that the proper parties can help mitigate them.