What if a "minnow" voted on content that wasn't published by you and then you vote on that? Wow brilliant!

Anyway, you're right that this isn't a solution but at least it starts a discussion and increases awareness.

People can indeed do what they want with the current implementation, but self-voting is self destructive behavior so it's not smart to do it. Me and others want a protocol change to increase incentive to vote on others so it's more obvious that self-voting isn't beneficial behavior.