Why do I care how somebody has earned their prestige? I want my questions answered, and nobody should care (much) about anything else. It’s already elitist and hostile to newcomers, the last thing we need is that it be enshrined in the implicit underlying data-structure that ’prestige’ is the whole point of the enterprise. Keep in mind that karma points or whatever are first and foremost an instrument for classifying replies from users, and only as a side-effect became a badge of honour. If anything that tendency should be suppressed to avoid concentration and the old-boys-club effect, not the opposite.