There's a subtle circularity problem with your proposal in that "professional reputations" are largely based on those same scientific metrics, which we know are gamed. The ability of even other scientists outside a field to properly evaluate those within a field is very, very low. And then when you get to the general public, it's just going to be a popularity contest fueled by implicit biases.
Reputation is always circular. The ones who are supposed to be reputable evaluate whether someone else is reputable as well.
But it's not based on metrics. Those are only used as an initial filter. When it comes to important decisions, the reputable parts of the academia rely on peer review. Shortlisted candidates – if not everyone - are evaluated by people who are expected to understand the research itself. Final evaluations are based on subjective judgment rather than objective metrics. It's not a perfect system, but it works reasonably well as long as most of the reputable experts deserve their reputation.
What you're saying makes the issue sound even worse.
> It's not a perfect system, but it works reasonably well as long as most of the reputable experts deserve their reputation.
I don't understand why you'd think this is a reasonable expectation. There's plenty of public examples where assumed competency turns out to be a costly, or even fatal mistake. That's just what's documented. Underneath, especially in academia, there's many examples of grifters in high positions. Every grad student (that is 100%) I've talked to has a story about this.
That's just how human institutions are. There are always bad actors, but as long as there are not too many of them, the honest majority keeps the system working. Meanwhile the bad actors have unfair advantages.
There is a good side to the academia, but you are less likely to experience it if you get into politics. Caring about frauds, grifters, and plagiarism is politics. You should make a conscious choice: do you care more about science as an ideal or about your own research. If you focus on your own research, you can seek like-minded people and ignore those who pursue status.
Of course, the academia is a risky career choice, and success is far from guaranteed. That's why it's important to know when to let go. You should learn to estimate what kind of career success you can expect, without wasting too many years in the process. Once you know that, you can determine if you would be content with that for the rest of your career, and make the choices accordingly.
Philosophy aside, the point is there's no mechanism to distinguish grifters from non-grifters in academia. The proposal "staking professional reputation" requires reputation to be an accurate measurement of competency.
I think my point was that individual performance does not matter. It doesn't matter if someone is competent or a grifter. It doesn't matter if someone achieves undeserved success. The academia is not here to produce short-term value. You don't need measurements that supposedly correlate with it. Measurements encourage gaming them, and gameable systems attract more grifters.
What matters is a culture of honesty. If a part of the academia has it, it probably produces long-term value. Unfortunately a culture is a nebulous idea. You can't measure it, and you can't really evaluate it from the outside. You may see it after the fact, if some people produced good science, because they lived in a culture that encouraged it.
Professional reputation is a signal for insiders. It can be used as a proxy for determining if someone is worth working with and if they are a good cultural fit. It's less useful for administrators, but they are not the ones doing science.
