Piefed has promise, particularly in the way it makes a serious effort to make votes private, but it's got a ways to go. It's missing some features Lemmy provides, and better third party app support is needed, too.

My kingdom for another instance with admins like this one.

This is a non-answer.

What matters most is the type of people in charge of the instance, why the decide to do certain things, and the types of decisions they're likely to make in the future.

Not all instances are the same in that regard.

Problem isn't so much defederation policy in and of itself, as much as it is just the general level-headedness of the admins

Lemm.ee's lead admin had exactly the type of philosophy towards managing this platform that I want to see in wherever I go next.

This post alone is what convinced me to create a primary account there. It's professional, level-headed, nuanced, well spoken, and you can tell they've actually thought a lot about the big picture in an unbiased way. Not aggressive, preachy, standoffish, snarky, snobbish, and above all, not reactionary. Seeing the instance as infrastructure is what I want to see more of, but I also just want to see admins with this attitude overall.

The images might be missing because of other people moving their accounts. I'm still seeing images, though.

Not sure if that's a joke but you replied to a comment from lemm.ee, and I'm replying to you from it.

Problem is, if it's visible to mods, it's effectively public.

This also presumes mods are, by default, inherently non-biased, held to a standard, and never have vendettas of their own.

Of all the many things reddit did poorly, choosing not to let mods see votes was an excellent decision.

Yeah, agreed. The more consolidated a thing becomes, the more entrenched it becomes. When alternatives, exit ramps, and escape routes are needed, they won't exist or require too much effort to take.

A lesson everyone should have learned 2 years ago.

Votes are private as well.