Actually, I was planning to allow regular members to vote too, but there will be limits, probably based on post count, to avoid temporary accounts being used just to rate someone.
I think the system will be more fair and accurate if it's not limited to staff/elites. Also, there are less possible voting opportunities when you vote for users instead of posts, so there should be more voters.
Wait, does that make sense?
I dunno... too tired to think about it.