I honestly don't know what you're talking about Leanson. People don't check ratings before reading a post (or I don't think they do o- o). Nor do I think new people would understand what that bar thingie under a person's avatar is right away. Not everyone is a sheep either.
The most I ever did was check the name of the poster, so I know what to expect (Starhaiden is hard to comprehend, Neonstrum has a lot of techno garble I rarely understand, Zoro is short winded, Debbie is Debbie, etc). Hate wagons or not, I know who is worth reading and who is probably just spitting gibberish.
In the context of new players, I don't see how a mass of disagrees would really change their opinions on someone... unless they are a sheep (And my lord do we attract some strong willed people). If they were brand new to the site, they wouldn't understand the system, and once they knew the system and looked at how it was used, I doubt they would really care for what the reputation bar said. I mean, has anyone actually said anything because of said reputation?
Quite honestly, just removing the bar on posts (which is already gone) should be enough in my opinion, I mean you see ratings after the post, not before, and most people don't go stalking profiles of everyone on the forums. I dunno, the argument you're making doesn't make sense to me at all.
TL;DR - Long and tiring rant about words I read on my screen and decided to throw more words at other people's screen cause that's what all the cool kids are doing.