I would say that bounties can affect your reputation and number of Merits that you will get. Some people before awarding user with Merit check his post history. If he will see lot of bounty reports in your post history, it's likely that he wont give Merit.
yep. that's me.
even if one post by a member is great if every single other one is nothing but a bunch of twitter and facebook links i'm gonna shop elsewhere.
i respect the one decent post. points are lost at the endless list of crap surrounding it.