I think this may have been brought up before - unfortunately, I can't find any related nodes. In previous discussions (or are those all in my mind?), there were some monks that argued that the vote button is at the bottom for a reason; namely, to encourage those with votes to read the entire thread before submitting their ++'s or --'s. While I do find it annoying to have to scroll down to the bottom of a long thread to finally vote, it keeps me involved in the thread.

--PotPieMan