It is interesting for sure and personally I feel between vote decay and possibly even a system where individual votes are accounted for by saying that each account with over 500 SP is a relevant vote so that somehow is factored into the algorithm of ordering them.

The Jerry situation was interesting because he was one of the only people to ever show up "late" and effectively campaign and rise up into a relevant position. I believe he was the most voted on Witness and wasn't necessarily there because a few founder / ninja miners voted for him.

The situation was entertaining and will go down in STEEM history but I feel that other witnesses looking to move up really tried to use that as fuel to jocky for position. The craziest part of all of it was that he shut down that witness node when he could have easily just kept it up and with no vote decay would have stayed high in the ranks and very profitable.