The promotion tools were always broken, but they were actually meant to be one of the important ways to bring back value to the community. Right now the bidbots are just devaluing the community by pulling out money and becoming so filthy rich that they control the whole thing. I agree that voting down posts in trending that use bidbots (any bidbot) might be a way to do it. Maybe just start from the top every day.
I have never really flagged anyone for the last three years, but I have become a bit tired of the state of things.