Note: this is not a criticism of the recent proposed voting changes. Those are the kind of fine tunings after long consideration that are reasonable.

I've gone through a period where I questioned large parts of how the monestary works. Why are node reputations hidden, why XP, why limited votes, etc.

There may be reasonable arguments for changing many things; the problem with following reason is that human nature is not so easily predicted. Much of how people use perlmonks is driven by a complex combination of everything :) to do with the site. To introduce major changes (e.g. allowing a user to see all node reputations upon request) would require a real conviction, not just that that would rationally seem better, but that overall things are not working as they are.

And things are working. Somehow, our founders have got things right. But how do you validate that assertion empirically? One metric is how prone to returning to the site experienced monks are. A quick sort through Saints in our Book shows:

Last here	# of Saints
> 52 weeks ago	2
26-52 weeks ago	8
13-25 weeks ago	7
5-12 weeks ago	20
3-4 weeks ago	9
1-2 weeks ago	20
< 1 week ago	186

I find those numbers extremely impressive.