I hope you will allow some informed discussion on this.
"any coin with VOT is technically votive as they are expressing vows or wishes"
That sounds very intuitive, ostensibly derived from etymology, but it is at odds with better informed usage. I reference Patrick Bruun, RIC VII, "General Introduction" part V. The Imperial Vota. 56-61. At no time in his discussion of the action of the imperial vota or the coins bearing this word does he refer to them as "votive" or use that term in his discussion of them. If we accept that his usage is well informed, how may we account for that?
Votive objects are dedicated for specific ceremonial use, and once the association is made they do not lose that function. Illicit use of votive sacrifices has always been regarded as a desecration, then and now. Sacrificial meat might appear in the marketplace after the festal meal is over, but there were strict rules about who could sell what and how. Sacrificial meals shared by the donors could be extended to others, and that was congruent with the marketplace in a religiously observant community. Early Christians were divided on what such meat represented, and tended to avoid it when encountered.
The treatment of coins intended for market circulation was not like that, in part because of the official status of the imperial cult. The function of the inscription on the "VOTA" coinage is rather in the manner of a public announcement or celebratory proclamation, but is not per se dedicatory. From the time of minting, these coins were not restricted to ceremonial use, and so did not consistently perform a votive function. At the same time, coins not bearing any direct reference to the action of the imperial vota were regularly employed in the exercise of vow fulfillment. If an emperor vows to Jupiter that he will pay certain money to his military, whatever tokens he might offer in the ceremony might be called "votive," but the payment to the troops was not. The coins which the emperor produced specifically to fulfill vows are called "donatives" by Bruun, who never applies the term "votive" to them. To do so, I think, confuses the distinction between public and private exercise of ancient religious practice.
I commend and recommend the way that Bruun handles reference to this coinage, naming it by its commemorative association with the various forms of imperial vota; i.e. the vota coinage.
