I wonder how you can go through several paragraphs of explaining what node reputation might mean and end by saying it means nothing.

Easy... I said my. My node, my node reputation, my personal reputation.
You are free to interpret your own nodes' reputations differently.

Node reputation is indicative of something even if we can't say exactly what that is. It isn't entirely arbitrary. It is a function of node visibility, popularity, and noise.

I tried to establish that but perhaps I'm not very eloquent.

The above serves as some explanation of why I downvoted your node. Its reputation now reflects, in some small part, my opinion. Not that it matters...

The down vote does not matter but the explanation for the down vote does. You interpreted my words differently than what I had meant. No worries.