I approve of Avery's point, as I have seen a newbie or two make a post that would have been appropriate at diaper-bois or 4chan or some such place, but not here, and got negrepped into oblivion for it, probably without really understanding why they were hit so hard. This is part of why I would like people with -rep to have the repcount hidden. (Read "The Scarlet Letter.")
On the other hand, there was a certain boy-lover who came here and bemoaned how he had a crush on a boy he knew, and was tormented by temptation... And got huge +rep for being honest and sympathetic (and writing reasonably well.) Like +10 for one introductory post. While I found the phenomenon fascinating, it clearly showed that the rep system wasn't doing what it was supposed to do, in this rare instance, though it worked properly in nearly all other cases.
As long as posts show how much rep they got, would it be possible to have a search function to look for high-repped posts? Obviously they would be archived 1. by repcount 2. ones with equal repcount shown in date order. Also, (and this is of great interest to raccoons: ) I would love to see both the +rep and -rep a post got, not just the netrep. I like that certain posts could earn + & -, and would like to see them... They would, apart from other things, be a barometer as to the community's attitudes...
Examples of posts that could earn both + and - rep:
any kind of porn, including softcore
crotch-shot avatars (especially nice ones)
violent images
strong opinions on controversial topics
ganging up on an unpopular member/post
satire, where some take the post literally while others find it funny or poignant
long, detailed posts (tl;dr if I want a lecture I will move back with my parents / fully explained, well done. Now I get it.)
memes which some find funny, others consider against the rules