You raise excellent points. The only thing that troubles me is that we might, by adding a new metric system, find ourselves at the same predicament - people might start discriminating based on the metric.
Bart said:
But as long as you're displaying the accept rate, people will comment on it, criticize users for it and possibly reconsider answering because of it. And while I'm of the opinion that a low accept rate should not stop you from answering (we're here to make the internet better after all) and that the possible reputation gain (or lack thereof) should not factor in either, I can't blame users for considering it. It's in their face after all. And we're only people
Let's face it, some of us have the luxury to be good citizens(voting, accepting answers, editing questions, etc.), while others just need an answer .. if we're aiming to help the greatest number, shouldn't we remove any potential barriers to someone getting helped?
I think we should reward good users, yes... but just in a way where it wouldn't interfere with the simple case of a question needing an answer.
As for why people don't discriminate based on rep... As it stands, people generally are forgiving to newbies, because we understand they are inexperienced - not that they are inferior to someone with a fancy 12.7K badge.