One way nom votes differ from legislation votes is that noms, once under consideration, are binary choices not open to amendment* or compromise. So outcome tree has far fewer branches. And that means less energy influencing outcome, more influencing public reception of outcome.
*Yes, @jiwallner, I know you want to amend a nomination.
This was one reason the nomination filibuster was seemingly more egregious than the legislative filibuster: it was pure; there was no pretense that it was designed to achieve an eventual compromise of modified legislation.
