This is exactly what I have always thought, felt and done

And I always admire you (and a handful of other users) for that. I believe the pressure of maintaining a certain voting CSI caused users to give smaller votes but in a wider range (talking about private accounts). It started as a rule which has now become more of a habit.

Sometimes, I wonder if all the orcas (and all sizes of fish, for that matter) start giving votes fairly and a little more generously, then authors might not look up to 01 or 02 that much and instead focus on increasing their readership by focusing on quality and real engagement.