We should all just upvote ourselves because the mechanics allow it? I'll get my $0.03, and you'll get your $2.50, and the whales will get their $100 for each 100% vote we give ourselves, up to 10 times per day? That's not what the voting system is intended for. The rich get richer, and the poor die trying....

As far as curation rewards go. Upvote your own comment, and if nobody else upvotes, you get the author reward, plus all the curation reward, for adding what others have perceived as of no value, hence no additional votes. That, right there, is self-serving abuse of power.

Read https://steem.io/SteemWhitePaper.pdf Page 16. Self voting is seen as defecting from the original goal of the voting system.

So back to your question:
Who am I to tell you what is an abuse or not with your vest?

I am nobody, an insignificant blip on the Steemit Blochchain, but I am someone who has read the whitepaper, and is still trying to understand much of it, but who understands that while some things are permissible by their "mechanics," it is not always beneficial for them to be exploited outside of their original design.

That is why I am in favor of implementing diminishing returns on self upvotes, and draining voting power of those who do. Hopefully it will cause a culture change to reward good work over greed. everyone will benefit from this, except the defectors.