@Jeremy - I do understand what you mean, you've got to have some sort of following and loyalty to be able to get people to do your bidding, but I think that if you stand back and think about the nature of polls, this sort of behavior means that the only thing any online poll will tell us is "Who is best at gaming online polls".

Word-of-mouth is, by its nature, something that can't be faked, it has to be earned through the long, slow, painstaking process of giving outstanding service and support to your users.

Everyone knows that if you ask people to do something, a certain percentage of them will do it, especially if it only takes a few seconds. Gaming an online poll is easy but companies with dignity and genuine pride in their product don't do it because, ultimately, it undermines their credibility.

As a general rule of thumb, you want the person you buy themes or plugins from to be focused on supporting their users (and earning actual, real word-of-mouth in the process), rather than distorting online polls or other opportunistic stunts.