Interesting stuff. As a reader instead of a blogger, I find it important that the blogs I read are honest and not naive. As you stated above, some boring "introduceyourself" posts will get more votes initially and this will be very discouraging in the beginning. However, I think that if you continu to make fair posts like this, the market will eliminate those "spammy / trickposts" and focus on the bloggers that actually bring valuable information to the community. Keep it up!