I think the whole thing should be revamped and replaced with an academy award-like system, with people affected being the people voting the rewards. Rather than thanks, people identified as users rather than developers should vote for those they find most helpful.

Developers should vote for those THEY find most helpful; obviously they would know better who is helping them than users who never talk to those people would.

So criteria for what deserves rewarding should be drawn up and the people giving the rewards should be chosen.

No amount of manipulation of sh.t data will give other than sh.t results.

Thanks should remain as a time-saving, personal step, but should not be ground up and used as compost for the reward system.