If I ever downvote you, I'll give you a reason. :-) I'm surprised no one has. I would guess maybe it's all the reasons you gave: laziness, fear of "retaliation", desire not to make enemies... but I don't know.

Personally (though I'm pretty new here), I really haven't found a reason for downvoting any node so far. I don't think I would downvote a node that raises interesting points like Necos's if I just happened to disagree with those points.

Sorry, this is off-topic, but a discussion I'm curious about and interested in. Maybe we could start a new Perl Monks Discussion thread?