Long time ago somebody said to me: Every single time you argue for restricting personal freedoms, you are most likely wrong.
I try to look at everything with that lens. Information frees people to make choice. As you pointed out. To some, they will feel "naked" so to speak, and simply stop buying self trophies. Others won't. Both are free to do as they please. But only one of them is likely to win "social points" per se.
Personally I think we need to do more to codify "social points" in a socially meaningful way. Currently the only thing that indicates any kind of social score is "Reputation" which is a false indication because it has zero to do with anybody's actual opinion of an account. Even if vote buying was massively unpopular, those who bought the votes would be rewarded with a higher reputation than those that didn't. People seem to disregard this as trivial, but I think they underestimate the power of positive social interaction and how crucial it is to everything we want to accomplish on Hive.
You be speaking my language dude!
https://peakd.com/hive/@meno/rethinking-reputation-on-hive