I stopped using upvote bots a while ago because while I thinks the intention are probably good, I think there are better ways for whales to help out minnows. I wish more whales would put their efforts into manual curation programs like OCD and responsible delegation if they don't want to go out and find good posts themselves.
I did think about going back to using them just for the deadpost contest I'm running so I could reward the winners with more sbd or steem but so far I haven't.
As for self votes, good point. I try not to self vote myself until my post has almost paid out and sometimes forget to cause whatever.
Exactly man, if it is to make contests and the such is great, if not, well we can all do whatever we want but still, it is better to not use them very soon! I started a contest, it is on my last post in case you want to participate!