As I stated in the comments under @Trafalgar's post, I have a solution to the bid bot issue that steps on no-one's toes and cannot really be circumvented. I wrote about it here. By giving every steem user the ability to mute the EFFECT of votes by allowing them to mute VOTERS - we allow everyone to block out the effects of bots while also empowering users to see more of what they want/need to see. This would also enhance the effectiveness of good curators too since their work would be more visible to those who care and they can then both benefit from their work by reading posts they discover and also then upvote them. This facilitates proof of brain in a pure way that does not involve overpowering anyone and that actually empowers people more than they have been. Empowerment is what is needed here.
I also commented that I see an issue with free downvoting in that the imbalance among user's Steem Power holdings means that malicious whales could literally shut down a large amount of the reward activity for the entire network, which would in turn boost their own earnings. Ultimately, power imbalance that can limit exposure is a problem when exposure is the proposed way to gain power and rectify the balance. This is a fundamental flaw in capitalism too, in the sense that new users (or new born babies) have to join in an old game where monopoly is already established. It's fine to say 'work hard and you can be big too', but in reality that's not how things play out due to the nature of the weighting involved and the ability of the biggest to crush the smallest with little incentive financially for them not to do so. The idea that the big whales who act selfishly to the point of destroying the network would change before they actually do destroy the network, presupposes a level of intelligence and perceptiveness/care on their part about such things - which is already possibly evidenced to be in short supply by the fact that they would have taken things to that point.
Every point in all of this is unique and we need to dive deeply into every point to fully understand it and reach the best outcome. Soundbytes jut can't cut it here. However, I will say that options that empower without overpowering anyone are always helpful.