most veer away from using it against new users as that is antithetic to the greater purpose of drawing more people to the platform

I agree that, yes discovering a "flag" on your post could be an issue. But not using the downvotes at all or looking to inform everyone through word of mouth about what is the proper use I think will effectively just lead to "cult" behaviour that likewise will repell the average user of say Facebook, Reddit or the Google/Youtube comment section.

I don't think there's any happy inbetween with flags vs downvotes. We can't really combine them effectively the way it's done today, so either the flag icon and effects need to go entirely or we need to separate the two.

I'm hopeful that Busy.org will deliver a better solution on this front.

I've discussed the issue both with beanz and sigma over the last couple months. I was completely opposed to Steemit.com users exercising the actual flag icon for other things than what the guidelines described, but since the reform of the guidelines I've also had to reform my treatment of the downvote (flag icon).

I'm hopeful that Busy.org will find a solution and that Steemit.com will follow suit.