> Let’s say I’m range voting out of 10 and I give four candidates 1, 3, 8 and 10 points respectively. But the candidate I rated 3 wins, with the candidate I rated 8 a close second. Damn it! If I’d known that was going to happen, I would have voted 1, 1, 10, 10.

This is the EXACT reason STAR voting was invented. Unlike plain score, STAR has a runoff where it compares your preference of the top two and puts your full vote to your preference.

So, this is like an exact case study of why STAR is worthwhile. STAR proposes 0-5, but we can stick with 1-10 for this case. You vote 1, 3, 8, 10 and the top two candidates are the ones you voted 3 and 8. With STAR, it doesn't matter that your 3 candidate got a total score higher than your 8 candidate, your vote in the runoff goes to your 8 because that's rated higher. If more voters rated that candidate higher, they win even if their plain score total was lower.

Thus, you don't have to exaggerate all your scores. In fact, you have an incentive not to, because if you just give ties, you risk abstaining in the runoff instead of having a say there.

I mean literally you just spelled out the most common critique of plain score voting which is itself THE argument for why we should use STAR instead.