But if you understand exactly what it is your ad hoc solutions are trying to accomplish, you may instead be able to find a real solution that actually does what you want, rather than dancing around the issue.

I would love this to be the case. Unfortunately, we're talking about human behaviour here, and specifically, talking about the fact that, for some people, that behaviour doesn't change even though other attempts have been made to actually address the real issue.

From having been present in forums that drowned under the weight of such people, I think it's also a good idea to have a backup plan. Especially one where the noise can still exist, but can be "filtered out" at will.

if I never see posts I would have downvoted, doesn't that interfere with the moderation system

Right now, the downvoted comments are hidden if they reach a certain threshold. The sorts of posts that are downvoted to this level are rude and uselessly inflammatory. Still - they are not "totally hidden". They are shown, in place, just as a "there is a hidden comment" link. If you want to see them, all you have to do is click on the link - and you can decide for yourself if that post deserved the harsh treatment (ie it does not interfere with moderation).

You can also adjust your own downvote threshold eg to hide all comments downvoted anywhere from -1 down... or to show them all until they're -10, which is actually what I've done. If you want, you can choose a sufficiently large negative value and will probably never see a hidden comment.