I am also concerned with Steemit feeding a welfare/begging culture under the guise of coin distribution = network survival.
We all need to work for our coins, accepting the market value of our production, even when we think it should be higher. (Try making Adsense rev. from a WordPress blog...)
Some of that work can happen off network, as you mentioned Zack.
Steemians tend to heavily reward promotion of Steemit on rival platforms. Sounds like an excellent job for minnows, or anyone else really.
RE: Self voting policy: 1/3 to me (max) and 2/3 rds for everyone else