That is a valid point, but I would counter that, while a small group of active participants does allow "the process" to work, more people would express their op

That is a valid point, but I would counter that, while a small group of active participants does allow "the process" to work, more people would express their opinion if voting was incentivized. Also, the "warm fuzzies" was a simple metaphor for upping the incentives for voting, as "warm fuzzies" could be considered themselves a net marginal gain. If your going to play the karma game (up and down voting) why not reward the users in the same nominal terms used to describe the content they voted on.