That’s bogus reasoning. Noone’s going to visit every homenode in every discussion to make sure they know all user levels. Displaying it openly OTOH would require retrieving each user’s level on each and every thread view. So site load is definitely lower when the information is not shown openly.

Actualy I beleive its already retrieved in order to get the users name, I'd have to look at the code to tell if that is true or not though. So I don't think it is "definitly" lower currently.

Would you also say individuals should be able to decide whether they want to see node reps prior to voting?

I'm not sure how that fits into any reasoning. I would think you look at a persons rep to judge how familar they are with the monestary and its ways. People here think you shouldn't judge a post by its author but that is bogus. If I didn't look at your rep I would think you were some newby crack pot. Looking at your rep tells me you have been here for a quite a while and probably know what you are talking about. That information is valuable and effects the way I view your nodes. You might think that is wrong or unjust, but its a fact. Since our votes effect the nodes rep directly and the persons XP indirectly, the premise that viewing a node rep is the same as viewing a persons rep are false.

Anyway I hardly care enough either way to keep this up, I just didn't want everyone to read the thread and go "displaying a persons level is bad and no one wants it!", although I think possible if there is this much negative feed back on it, then the good done by adding it would probably be outweighed by the people it upsets (whether or not your predictions are true.)