Great article Andrea, though I wouldn't write off voting entirely. It is a tool, like many others, that has a time and a place. It can be misused and abused easily, and often is.

Voting as a tool, when done right, can provide signals (additional data) to use in decision making. It's not a democracy....i.e. where the things with the highest votes automatically win. I've used voting in very early stage discovery to get a sense of the key areas of concern of customers, but also to identify segments or individuals (not all voting is anonymous) to follow up with for additional information, research etc.