You are right, reputation is a measure of upvotes vs/flags. The amount of reputation increase an upvote gives you is also related to the reputation of the user upvoting you as well as the amount of steem they hold. I could go on the exchanges and purchase $10 K SBD worth of steem and my reputation would not increase.
So you do know this stuff :)
Strange. I didn't know, what I knew, what I now know.
hmmmmm