The problem is that any gameified system, like a karma or reputation system, attracts people good at interpreting rules strictly and finding efficient ways to exploit them. So you're actually selecting for literalist rules lawyers.
This specific question was turning into crap fast, with answers like "Sounds like your friend is a bit of a dick. Noone wants to work for him." (since deleted). Closing it only prevents further answers, as it was obvious they were deteriorating. Still, the closure and any closure, is reversible, people always have the choice to vote to re-open if they feel the closure wasn't justified.
That's why I consider this the most brilliant bit of Wikipedia's policies: "If a rule prevents you from improving Wikipedia, ignore it." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules
There's a great discussion of that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_%22Ignore_all_ru...
Last time this blew up on HN, some of the principals of SO turned up here, as did a bunch of mods. They were mostly unable to discuss the issues in terms of serving the audience; they just kept falling back on The Rules. An attitude, I'm sure, which quickly drove off anybody with common sense. So now they have achieved glorious groupthink: everybody they normally talk to agrees with them about The Rules.