I agree with everything you said, however there's a useful dynamic connected to thanks: finding good content.
9 out of 10 times, a post with lots of thanks is a must read/watch post. That is especially true in those forum sections where fewer thanks are awarded (free sites, for example) and where one must click on a link or generally jump through a few hoops to get to the 'good part'. So, thanks are essential to know in advance wether a post might be ok, great or exceptional.
If anything could be changed, would be to stop displaying the amount of thanks in those forum sections that are essentially (re)posting of pictures. You don't need to know how many likes a picture has received in order to enjoy it. When so many thanks are awarded on every picture, the individual thank itself loses its value, and as you said, the focus shifts from the actual content (the image) to the amount of thanks.
So one thing that could be done is, keep the thanks function, but take away its 'public display' in certain forum sections. This will deter useless popularity contests.
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