JPHAM is Master of this domain. If he wanted to obliterate any number of rep points or give himself 1,000,000,000, it is within a snap of his omnipotent fingers. Fortunately we live under benign dictatorship. So we all skulk about humble in our serfdom.
Buster had it right though in one way. The number of reputation points that one gathers per post is one indication of what any poster brings to the table in terms of average readability-worth. Whiskey brings about 27 readability-worth rep points per each post. That translates into him putting thought and substance into things he lays out there. My guess is that JPHAM, when he thinks about such matters, is very happy that he has guys like Whiskey as regular posters who bring the "meat" to the table.
This isn't the whole story though by a long shot, as valuable posters like GB and LAX constantly toss in their interesting tidbits on recruiting, which by its nature doesn't always elicit reps back on small bits of news. So reps per post isn't a good measure to judge what they bring to the table either. And we have some pretty juvenile reasons why some postings get reps from the large segments of the troglodyte community.
Rep power to me is sometimes "fun" but also allows older veterans to make a little stronger disapproval/approval point which is healthy for the site, and I'll bet that's why JPHAM continues the system. If all one wants is bulk points, then post a whole lot, be optimistic, say nice things about Notre Dame, and occasionally actually do some work to bring new information to the table. And be willing to back off when we're wrong.