I believe I told the most of my arguments already. I'd personally like to hear why actually should we keep the feature. I think I only heard two arguments of your side:
1. It should make people think twice before posting - sure, nice one, although it doesn't work like that. People with currently high rep don't need to think before posting, what's a chance they'd lose the whole huge amount of points they have? Besides, other high rep people like them, only some newbies could actually negrep them and what would be the effect? One, maybe two points of loss, what's the matter. On the other hand, those newbies with low rep are scared of posting. They're not only thinking twice, they think ten times and in the result don't press the button not to lose even more rep.
2. The number helps in finding out who's writing the best posts - and, as has been said multiple times, this doesn't work as well. "The number means nothing/not much" I've seen much times. I think mostly people on your side were saying so. If it means nothing, what do need it for? It's useless, isn't it? Does it make some of you smile after noticing that your nothing-meaning-number is higher than mine? Do you need an appreciation of this kind? Because I can't understand why do you keep saying it's not something to care about, it's meaningless, but at the same time the reputation counter is helpful and it can't be deleted, and so I'm an immature drama queen deserving to be negrepped.