OP, take a look at my trust history and you'll see that there are probably more negatives than positives. Does that mean you can't trust me? No (though I'm sure there are some members who'd tell you otherwise). Most of the red trust I've gotten has been from members I'd previously tagged for various misdeeds like account selling or abusing bounties. The same is true for many members on the default trust list, because a lot of them are or have been active scam busters and have thus gotten a lot of negative trust in return from members they've busted.
I have gotten a glimpse of how the trust system works. I have journeyed through your trust history, aswell as other reputable members. It looks like a cold war from your reply and what I witnessed. The revenge of the busted!
But I think it's risky, if there isn't a police to enforce or regulate the system, the negative people may overwhelm and hijack the system.
The negative users are definitely a cancer on the trust network. A lot of them are unhappy with their own lives and use this forum as an outlet to attack others. As more successful and positive members flee this place, we are left with an ever growing % of unproductive members who think that spreading negativity is somehow a good thing here. They team up to get each other in the default trust network and take out their frustrations on those whose attention they seek to give them some sort of relevance here they are unable to achieve in their daily lives. My advice is to add these users to your trust settings with a ~ in front of their name to exclude them and free yourself from their negative influence.
If you want to judge someone's reputation, you'd be better off counting the number of positive interactions, as trust envy is very real here.