You seem to have missed the point of the up vote requirement for downvotes though. It exists to restrict downvotes to those who are more active, and thus more "invested?". I believe that this was a very deliberately chosen barrier to entry here.

I definitely did not miss that point. I understand the idea behind a barrier to entry. However I am pretty active. I read HN every day, and I've even written a few submissions, one of which made the front page. So wouldn't you say I'm invested? I just don't comment very often.