Yeah I followed the trail and found the same things.
I think a bot to track this behaviour could be helpful and as for a reason to downvote this use of stake.
I think it may breach the TOS in terms of 'proof of brain'?
The concept of steemit was for people to select the best content. If this process is automated then where is the proof of brain other than someone had the brains to game the system?
THe brains to game the system is actually a pretty good PoB if there was the incentive to stop those who game the system... oh, now there is ;D
I think the bots will arrive and I also hope there will be statistics and analytics to gamify the downvotin experience to some degree. Feedback on how we as a community and the health of the ecosystem is doing.