I posit that in fact, this default is damaging to new accounts in the light of the greatly accelerated rate of vote power decay. They can't then send votes to other accounts to build up their fanbase, and that's the 100% most important factor in growing an account, I have proven it once with my @l0k1 account, making at least 15000SP over 6 months of networking and engagement, and I plan to prove it again with this new account, it will only take a couple of months to see that my strategy is the most effective.

BTW, don't confuse resteeming and linkdropping in a relevant discussion with self-voting. These two ways of promoting yourself do not take away rewards from the pool nor do they (usually) conflict with the keeping of discussions on topic.