The reputation system on Hive was a "quick fix" to problems in the distant past. I'm not aware of anyone who thinks it is particularly great, but it still has some use, so we're somewhat stuck with it until we can replace it with something better.

There is a plan for a replacement and we're planning to start working on it this year, but it will be a big project and I'm not sure yet when we'll have the first fruits of that work. If you're interested in the design of it, you can read two posts I wrote about it a while back:
@blocktrades/a-peer-to-peer-network-for-sharing-and-rating-information
@blocktrades/modeling-information-in-an-information-rating-system