Most people don't really care about nets, and with good reason. They're like Facebook "Likes", an effortless gesture that expresses a minimal level of appreciation. If loopholes are exploited to boost people's net count, it doesn't really bother anyone because what difference does it make anyway?
On the other hand, people do and should care about negs, also with good reason. When we see someone with a high neg count, it generally tells us this person is a troll or otherwise a very offensive and disruptive person. When the system is abused and 3 or so people gang up and repeatedly neg a single person day after day after day, they effectively hang a scarlet letter on that user whether it's warranted or not. This harassment effectively shapes how every other user will see the target poster and worse, sets up that target poster for further abuse from other users just looking for a punching bag.
It was a lot harder to exploit negs and nets before the system changed, which makes me wonder why it changed in the first place. There's nothing wrong with being able to express agreement or disagreement, and there's nothing wrong with users amassing plenty of either and having that reflect their contribution to the board. When that system can be exploited, however, it may seem harmless to most who give each other extra pats on the back, but it really really sucks for the guy who ends up with a huge neg count because a few assholes with enormous chips on their shoulders decided that bullying is easier and more satisfying than actually arguing with the target poster over whatever.
Free nets? Great! While I was far more proud of my earned 36 nets than I am of whatever I'm at now, at least people won't see my net count and assume I'm a Lumie-level troll. Once Netmas is over, however, and especially once Hodj shows his face again, I have zero doubt that my net count will once again plummet to the negatives, because that's just how petty some people are. If we could go back to net count actually reflecting good or bad posters instead of being heavily exploited to effectively "create" a reputation (good or bad), we'd have a system worth something.