"I think the voting problem is a serious one. Apparently, only a minority of readers and posters vote and they seem to have a gang mentality that works like this: "If I don't like you, I'll vote you down regardless of what you write." This sucks the big one."

Maybe fade the commenter's name when a comment is posted and restore it to full visibility, say 24 (or 48 or 100) hours later? This way you are forced to focus on the content of the comment and not the commenter.