In the end, I am sticking with the convenience of vote selling out weighs self voting anyway. As it requires the investor to not do anything to achieve ROI.
However, this is neither here nor there really. The focus should be on building steem value and vote selling/self voting etc still (IMO) don't play a role in that (for benefit or negative).
I wish people would spend more of their time raging at the lack of push toward really building value, than yelling about how people vote. Give people a reason to delegate and invest that can really return value, and you will see self voting disappear.
(also I really like your sentiment that powerdown needs to be able to be instant for a fee, that would really encourage investment)
RE: WHY IS STEEM FAILING? BECAUSE YOU ALL BITCH AND WHINE ABOUT SELF-VOTING.