I agree the reputation score should have started anew, and not interpreted past votes in a manner that was never intended when those votes were cast.

I ended up spending quite a bit of time personally cleaning up the mess created by the initial values of Dan's reputation system, especially in the form of enthusiastic users having their Steem dreams crushed by being sent into deeply negative rep by generally a single minor offense of poor taste or a mistake that happened to be downvoted by a whale (often Dan himself). Or even in some cases a downvote that was inexplicable (and possibly in error). I don't know how many simply quit instead of appealing for help, but I'm sure some did.

When the rep system is redone yet again, it should start with reset reputations rather than repeating the mistake of reinterpreting history.

@stellabelle, I don't think he intentionally rigged the rep system to give himself a high score, but I think he deemed it acceptable because it gave himself and others who he considered worthy high scores (and possibly because it did not place him at risk of having his reputation severely damaged if he were to make unpopular posts, as others much consider), while paying little to no attention to how it treated the others. If a proposed reputation system happened to give him or any of his favorite members a very low score based on past votes, he'd probably have revised it, or started with reset reps.