it's necessary for the intended consequence of bringing all profitable behavior into light.

I don't understand what you mean by this sentence.

Would you elaborate on your idea of a vote-selling scheme? And/or "undermining honest curation"? When I sponsor someone, it is because I have read their content and have chosen to support them. Is that not honest curation?

It's also not content-indifferent. I, a real person who has read some content, want to support the author of that content.

Perhaps the disconnect between our perspectives comes from how we consume content. I like particular authors, and I subscribe to them. It matters to me, the whole of their body of work, what they've done before and what, based on that, I can expect from them in the future. You presumably read whatever happens to be in front of you at any given moment, and find what they've done before or are likely to do in the future irrelevant?