Rep is useless as a reputation gauge. Just lurk and look at people's real reputations. Example, over the past few years Sage is at around 10, while most of his peers like a Virus Bomb or Kill (who's no longer a peer, but was) have been at 20.
If someone wants to know if somebody is important or not, they should lurk a bit.
Edit: The same thing will happen with likes btw.