@nuancedthought, this is similar to what MinnowSupport did regarding their witness vote application, you basically needed to show what value you can bring to the MinnowSupport network and Steem.

Yes other witnesses that have nothing to do with BuildTeam have a shot, we currently vote for Curie for example only on the merits of what they do for the Steem network since we still have empty slots, however if later more witnesses come along that are willing to support BuildTeam in some way and we don't have free slots we will likely replace some like curie.

BuildTeam has stakeholders and team members who rely on BuildTeam being successful so we have to make sure that we maximise all resources, including our witness vote capacity.

Hope that makes sense.