"If site participation were as great or greater than in the olden days, I'd agree with you; but as was recently brought up, participation in the site is waning, and commensurately the number of votes cast. Indeed, part of my reason for thinking it would be nice to dole out more votes to the active members is to mitigate, at least a little bit, the disadvantage that more recent nodes have against older nodes."
That's certainly valid, and probably constitutes an incontestable answer to my concerns; one that obviates those concerns. But, FTR, I'm not completely "comfy" with the notion of extra votes as early as Level 11: that's a status that can probably be obtained in just a few weeks by an XP whore.
And the balance of "crowd sourced approbation" with some "elitist control" is a very strong plus for your idea. Again, thank you!
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes. Juvenal, Satires