I don't agree with Opcode whom I consider highly, on his first point, the others are good, he may feel uncomfortable with the judgment and I can relate but to me it is what makes this forum unique, it is a simple way of showing the poster at least your basic feeling on their thinking, please don't take that away
I don't think the Like feature should be removed, and my opinion is the same as yours on that... it makes the forum better and reduces excessive "Thanks for that" (not to mention that in PMs it can be used as a "I read that").
What I was trying to say was maybe there could be a setting which once enabled will show a toggle switch button placed towards the bottom near the footer or the side menu (so it can be enabled/disabled with minimum clicks). When the toggle button is set to ON, the Like button along with the Like statistics on posts on the threads will have become hidden, and when the toggle is changed back to OFF, they are no longer hidden... for the current user.
That way, no members would see the switch on the forum design unless they went into the main settings and enabled it (to prevent distracting or irritating users who wouldn't care less) and only those who opt-in and enable the setting as well as the switch visible after will have the Like statistics and Like button made invisible.
In other words, the ability to hide the Like statistics and button for the member deciding only. This way it affects no one else, only the member enabling the feature.
I doubt many people would use such a feature so it probably isn't of interest to be added but its the taking part that counts