Well, seeing as how I missed answering your first question, Etryus, while I was focusing on threadwood's, here's an explanation for that.
The reputation points you see on your
Settings page does not correlate to the amount of "Rep Power" you see below your avatar.
The reputation points you see in the settings tab is an accumulation of points (dependent on the type of karma and the givers "rep power") you've received added to the sum of your points directly reflected by the givers "rep power" at the time given. Therefor, if I were to give you a +/-karma on a post, your reputation points would go up or down 51, being that my "rep power" is 51. If you were to give me +/-karma, mine would move 2 points.
So "Rep Power" is merely a numerical figure given to the weight of someone's reputation giving ability, where as the reputation you see in your settings is just a sum of all reputation received, based on the rep power of the giver, positive or negative.
(a special thanks to those that threw some rep my way so I could verify the above info!)
Shablagoo!