Posted my first bounty question, so I was curious how answering your own bounty question works as I noticed you could game the system with it (yes I have the mindset of wondering if anything I use can be abused and how).
Anyways, came here, searched, and found Lost reputation after answering my own question with bounty
Reading the comments on the accepted answer, I believe I have a solution to the problem.
Providing the situation, where you do answer your own bounty question, would it not be reasonable to simply refund your reputation in the chance your answer has the highest votes (minimum of +2)?
I feel that if you posted a bounty, and were able to answer it yourself, and prove to the community you had the best answer (by having most votes and over +2), you should be entitled to a reputation refund.
This not only prevents the regret or desire to stop trying to answer your own problem, and remove any reluctance in posting a bounty on a question you are still researching an answer too.
That, and it keeps with the spirit of Stack Overflow, where the community "moderates" itself. No one is refunded unless they prove to the community they successfully answered their question.
Is this a feature that would be acceptable to the SO owners? If not, why?