(Neg) rep went for two reasons. Firstly, the forum software stopped supporting it, so we'd have been left with a vulnerable plug-in from a security perspective. To my knowledge, it isn't a functionality that has been re-built by the dev community surrounding our forum software either, so it would need us to hire a developer specifically to build and maintain it just for us. Secondly, it became something that was abused by some to use their strong 'neg powers' to blitz the reputation of new members, which isn't what it's designed for. It created a situation whereby I'm not sure it would have been restored even if the software did exist (which it doesn't).