You're absolutely right that this is a "whale problem": unless you have a whale vote for your post or it's INSANELY popular, you'll get almost nothing. A whale vote = $200+ whereas most minnows it's worth less than a penny. If you get enough votes, there is a quadratic algorithm in play that will start amplifying them. My STRONG opinion is that they need to make this less extreme and reward the top ones less and the medium ones more.

Still, if you want a lot of votes you need something that appeals to the masses. Right now the masses are geeky.