Why can't all users see upvote and downvote counts? Is it somehow problematic for new users to have this information? The total score doesn't show all of the relevant information (+5-4 and +1-0 are very different, but both total +1), and it would be nice to have this on sites where I don't have enough reputation yet, but I don't see any reason a user who's new to the entire network shouldn't see it either.
Is this just to give people an incentive to participate more and gain rep (seems pointless considering the other privileges, which do have obvious reasons for needing restrictions), or is there some reason I'm missing?
