In addition, rule 7 (low effort posts) is deleted as everyone seems to agree its handled just fine with votes.
This one is tough for instances like mine. Downvotes are turned off, so I and others like me who choose to experience the Fediverse in a different way will not see posts fall, only rise. In theory, these low-effort posts wouldn’t get many positive votes in the first place, but it would be nice to still have an option for those of us who don’t use downvotes.
Basically, removing the rule and relying on downvotes is excluding of instances that don’t have downvotes.
I think that’s a fair assessment. If it becomes an issue where we’re getting inundated with low-quality posts, then it might be worth bringing it back up.