There was nothing you need to apologize for about the post itself (a few needlessly hostile comments though deserved apologizing for). It did not need to be deleted. That said, I beg the admins to please please not remove upbears. All the really excellent points that were rightly countering the idea of removing the ability to upvote that were thoughtfully written out are now also impossible (or very difficult) to read since the post was deleted. Now all that's visible here is how "it's all good, you're fine!" and not the fact that (ironically according to upvotes) almost all were in favor of not removing upbears. (You said part of the original intent of making that post was that you were upset that you got ratioed somewhere else on the site and I can't help but wonder if getting ratioed in the anti-upbear post too was also part of the impetus for deleting it.)

If admins like @CARCOSA are seriously considering this, I hope we can have an open and honest debate about it first - not on this post - and not when it all just gets deleted.