Yes, you're being anal.

But to clarify, there are a number of things that factor in. These are:

• How well you express yourself. Poorly written nodes are much more likely to be ignored or hammered than even well expressed nodes that are incorrect.
• Technical accuracy. A node that is technically correct will do better than an incorrect one. However, a good node, deep enough in a thread, usually won't do well because people have gotten tired of the thread. Except for the golfing type nodes, generally the longer a node goes on, the less useful it becomes. Peoples time and attention span have to be factored in.
• Who wrote it. One might say sad but true, but the fact is there are people that are less respected than others, and usually because they've brought it down on themselves. If your name is DiscoStu, you're doomed. The odds of ever having a positive rep node are somewhere between slim and none.
• Whim. People are unpredictable fickle creatures. What I may think is an excellent node, someone else will hate. Me, I can't stand 99.4% of all so called 'Perl Poetry'. If it's really bad, I vote it down. If it merely sucks, I ignore it. I think I ++'ed one, once. It was a fluke.
• Whining/complaining/commenting on reputation of a node. Generally, if you complain about it, people will visit untold --'s on you. Sorry, but it happens. It's worse if you bring it up in the chatterbox, or so I believe.

Frankly, people assign way too much value to reputation. It's an imperfect system, and always will be, because people are involved. Folks aren't always objective, in spite of the the 'Vote the node, not the person' mantra. $0.79 and 10,000 XP will get you a cup of coffee at McDonalds. XP don't mean jack. It won't buy you a better car, hasn't gotten anyone a better job (yet), and is non-transferrable. If you're attaching your self worth to your article reputation or XP, you need help. Badly.

Oh yea. Some people, like Dominus, wander in here out of the blue, and accumulate XP like no ones business. That's because they're well known outside of the monastery. Just look in the front of Damian Conways Object Oriented Perl, you'll see thanks to Dominus. Me, my name isn't there. No one knows who the hell I am, and I had earn my disrespect. Pretty much just like everyone else.

The key to doing that? Good nodes. What's a good node? That's a whole 'nother diatribe, my friend, a whole 'nother diatribe...