"Who cares if they self vote? Stake weighting enables substantial stakeholders to manipulate the rewards pool and take from it for themselves. This does not increase the distribution of Steem and does not put upwards pressure on the price of Steem. The reverse is true"

Let's assume that is correct because it probably is to one degree or another. There is no promise of rewards, and the Steem white paper pokes fun at that suggesting that people will get under-rewarded in comparison to the work they put in because it exploits human psychology in the same way that gambling does. However, wouldn't it also be true that if we had 5 aspiring whales who bought into Steem today at 500k each, just so they could self vote, that that in and of itself would drive the market value of Steem upwards?