I don't question their premise, I believe that it happens. So remove clout, it's a feature to create network incentives for people who need an incentive.
That's right. Most people need incentive. That's how humans operate unfortunately and you have work around that to get anything done. That's why being good manager is hard. For example, if you make a competition to give some prize for most fixed bugs, they will get fixed. Yes some won't be fixed completely and you have to redo them but I guarantee you there will be more bugs fixed than if you don't have the incentive.
