I wonder if these things are possible:
1) Turning off the ability for ratings to affect posting/thread-starting, if it is.
2) Set a lower maximum number of rating points per post. Say, 5.
3) Lowering the number of points you can give a day? Is it 10 right now? Say, make it 5. Kind of like slashdot moderation, you get 5 points to use at a time.
4) A cap for maximum positive/negative value?
Some posts are getting ridiculous hate like -9, etc. Either way it's a bit egregious, but I don't think having the ability to + or - posts is cosmetically, a bad thing. Just something we probably don't want getting too out of hand. Anyway, these aren't recommendations, just throwing some ideas out there.