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Great job!!! Thank you for preparing such a thoughtful email and giving us a methodical guide for how to proceed. As an author/publisher I agree with you on all counts: 1) marketing is a heart breaker and 2)an indie author trying to game Amazon does a disservice to us all. The danger, as you pointed out, is that Amazon will set up barriers that keep self-published authors out. I'll follow-up on each of your recommendations.

The approach Graham Worthington (he should have called himself "Unworthington") has taken isn't one I've run across. Usually authors seem to lean on bogus reviews and straw sales. One determined scammer, Thomas Hertog, bought and downloaded his own wealth management ebook 173 times over five months. He went on to write 42 customer reviews that he voted on a 108 times to raise the ranking on Amazon's bestseller list and recommendation lists, ending up alongside Suze Orman on the personal finance best-seller list. He writes about this in a rambling rant called "The Day Kindle Died" on sale for $2.99 on Kindle. Did this help his subsequent sales? He doesn't say, and I doubt it. But that begs the larger issue, the one you raise.

Given Amazon's online marketshare and ubiquity, it is functioning as the Commons - the public space used by a large reading public. We all have an interest in policing this space so that it remains open for everyone.