Article Downvotes should be removed - Yay or Nay?

[Zippy6]

Ryuu96 said:

+ Upvotes could encourage more comments as it's nice to know your comments are appreciated
+ Upvotes stop the spam of "Agreed" posts - Although technically, this is against the rules anyway.
-  Upvotes could cause a decline in detailed "Agreed" responses as there's no reason to think out a response when you can just slap a like on the post.

I also use forum upvotes as a way to tell someone who has quoted me or said something to me that I have read their post when I have nothing meaningful to respond. Which I guess comes under the 2nd point. I think "agrees" are a valuable way to get feedback, I'm sure there might be people who use it instead of posting a detailed response but I think the majority of "agrees" wouldn't translate to any form of post if the feature was removed. I don't view the agree system as harmful in any way.