I'm not a fan of rep. I'm not here often but on the sister site I have the highest rep there, so it's not about feeling "inferior" or whatever. I simply think it's childish and promotes a clique mentality. That's probably not so much a problem here as it is over on WLF, but that's mostly where my disdain comes from.
Plus, anything that can be said in rep can be said via PM or on someone profile page in their comment section.
That said, we have rep on my forum but it's not abused. People rarely give it out. And the moment it turns into a clique fest, I'll remove it.
Why do I have it in the first place?
People voted for it. And I allowed it since it wasn't being abused.
Running a forum like this, you're never going to make everyone happy. I know over on WLF, Sean simply reset the rep. I also think he changed the rep scale. Which helped.