Having voted ++ on some of your "hopping on one foot" posts, my excuse is that the occasional well-placed sarcasm makes me laugh.

Beyond that, ++ votes seem to depend heavily on what it is that voters see and understand. Buried conversations don't get voted on because nobody sees them. Answers that people can see the value of get voted for. If you talked to the 42 (or more) people who voted for the cheap node but not the one you worked on, I'd bet that most of them never saw the one you worked on, and most of the rest didn't read the long discussion.

As for the +38 on the incoherent question, I would be interested in what the division is between different reasons. Many might vote because it is an easy way to use up votes (and hence gain XP). Others want to encourage people to ask questions. (Perhaps the topic or discussion was interesting despite the question?) Perhaps a few simply can't judge the quality of a question.