Consider a situation where a post strongly offends a small number of LW regulars, but is generally approved of by the median reader. A small number of regulars hard downvote the post, resulting in a suppression of the undesirable idea.
I believe that this is actually part of the design intent of strongvotes—to help make sure that LW rewards the kind of content that long-time regulars appreciate, avoiding an “Eternal September” scenario where an influx of new users starts upvoting the kind of content you might find anywhere else on the Internet and driving the old regulars out, until the thing that originally made LW unique is lost.
I believe that this is actually part of the design intent of strongvotes—to help make sure that LW rewards the kind of content that long-time regulars appreciate, avoiding an “Eternal September” scenario where an influx of new users starts upvoting the kind of content you might find anywhere else on the Internet and driving the old regulars out, until the thing that originally made LW unique is lost.