If you vote in the first 15 minutes, instead of it going to the author, it will be returned to the reward pool. This will remove some of the self-voting, at least the early self-voting.

No. The people who use the timed bots will just continue to vote between the 15-30 minute window. It won't change a thing.

What would really eliminate problems with the Rewards Pool is to remove the ability to upvote from the API and only allow upvoting on Steemit.com. No more circle jerks, no more paying for upvotes, no more fake upvote counts.

Does any whale or witness have the balls to make that suggestion?