Whilst I respect all you have done for the community - I believe it is up to the market to decide what the value of a post is by voting for it. If the flag was still a downvote then it might be acceptable.
The downvote option no longer exists though and was changed to a flag for that very reason.
You flag posts that plagiarise, rip off or are otherwise abusive (not because you disagree with them or you don't value them).
However you do bring up an important point though. Whales up-voting their posts are in effect giving themselves a huge payout which attracts many other voters hoping for curation rewards and a piece of the pie. Even if the rewards aren't that large it doesn't matter.
Most people haven't read the white paper or other material relating to how voting works and they never will. They see a large amount of money and a whale's name and they automatically vote on it hoping for a piece of the pie.
Not only that but I'm sure you aren't the only one who feels that there is a certain dubious morality to that concept - it's like paying yourself kickbacks. Whilst a minnow giving a self vote is a tiny drop in the ocean, a whale doing that can pay themselves more money in one go that an average minnow would make from a thousand posts.
In view of this, perhaps self-upvoing should be removed altogether. It won't completely solve these problems but it will show us the truer value of the post to the community.
I think that would be a better solution all-round but that's just my opinion. I would be interested to hear what the rest of the community think.
RE: Negative Voting and Steem