I was under the impression (perhaps wrongly, forgive me if this is the case) that rep was meant more of a rough measure of someone's ability to help out in technical cases and situations though, not for their ethical standing or witty replies or whatever reason in the social lounge. I could post a brilliant essay about the fall of communism for example that might knock the socks of what anyone's written before on the subject, and a hundred people could give me rep for it because it's well done and easy to understand - but for someone trying to use rep as a guide for my technical ability, that really wouldn't be very helpful.I'm partial to the cause of removing rep from the Social Lounge. There are a ton of very good discussions there! Within those, there are many insightful comments that--regardless of whether it involves computers or not--deserve rep.
If this isn't what it's meant to be used for and I'm getting the wrong end of the stick somehow then fair enough - I'm just going along with my understanding of it