> unnecessary things such as reputations

Maybe, maybe not. In some cases that's a bad thing. Sometimes it's good. None of us has the time to verify all the facts behind arguments, so sometimes we need to take the quality of the poster into consideration.

My favorite example: if WAHa says something about programming, I take it more seriously than unknown Anonymous.

I think this entire argument is silly. Forced naming and forced anonymous are both annoying. If you want to use a nick, use it, otherwise don't.