'Karma seeking behavior' is a problem even on wholly uncontroversial subreddits. Shit like "my girlfriend baked me a cake with [subject of the subreddit on it]" is really uninteresting content after you've seen it for the thousandth time but gets upvoted pretty reliably. Reddit's system simply isn't an effective moderation system if you want to establish a thoughtful community because cheap pandering to the crowd is easier than finding or creating thoughtful content.

>if you want to establish a thoughtful community

Reddit does not want to establish a thoughtful community. Much like Facebook, Buzzfeed, etc. it relies on virtue/outrage to sell ads.

Like an anonymous imageboard with upvotes?

Why are karma / votes even necessary?

Surely the popularity of content could be purely determined by the actual amount of clicks a given article/topic is given in a certain amount of time?

What's the difference between a click and an upvote then? It can still be gamed as easily (maybe even easier).

Also, it has a major problem: if users know that popularity is based on clicks, then they can't click on anything they might disagree with (to simply learn more about it) without amplifying the signal as well. The incentives of user behavior are changed in to a self-censorship of what the user allows themselves to read, likely enforcing bubbles even more.

That's 4chan

If the content was less temporary, was more like a forum than an image board and had a bit more of a modern look / feel to it.