While it isn't surprising and of course birds of a feather flock together and all that, it is still disappointing to me as someone who has tried very hard to spread my votes out to good content independent of REP, with a bias toward lower REP to help newbies out. Flying the no self-voting flag here is a bit of a lonely endeavor. Likewise publishing content as a newb is a bit like beating your head into a brick wall, except the brick wall keeps spouting that this is the place your voice can be "heard". @lextenebris point below RE lower REP accounts relying on higher REP accounts to "drag them" up is spot on, and the inclusion of money in this equation where higher REP = higher income means where attention is not focused on cohorts in the same REP range, it is focused on higher REP accounts in an attempt to gain attention and votes. I can't help but wish someone with even a tiny bit of knowledge of game theory had been involved in the initial decision making processes when setting up the reward distribution system here.