I pretty much agree with you. The value should be up to whoever wants to vote. Others can disagree, but just wiping people out when they are trying to be social is just mean.

I don't use AI at all. I see no point at all in padding stuff out just to hit some arbitary threshold. I do Snaps for brief stuff and some get good engagement. Maybe the front ends could optionally make them visible in my feed, but still exclude from auto votes.