If they don't bother updating their autovotes based on metrics that provide value to the ecosystem then we have to use downvotes to encourage them to do so for the health of the ecosystem. This may also encourage manual voters if as you say rewards/APR are that important to check on those requirements before voting posts up. Too long have blind autovotes received the same APR as those putting in manual effort without consequences and caused a lot of authors to become the same as the one mentioned in this post. It's proof of brain for a reason, if you're not using yours then you're bound to face some pushback.