Totally understand your POV on this. It is something new and at the moment it does seem odd and uncomfortable. Previously we all used two metrics to evaluate someone so at some level you were doing a bit of mental gymnastics in your head to see if you felt the time someone had been here vs the posts they had created made them a valuable or trustworthy member. I hope that over time, you will grow to have trust in the trophy system and that number will instantly provide the trust/no trust evaluation for you. Keep in mind, during this transitional time, you can click on someone's Trophy point count and see why they have the points they have. You can also click on their avatar and see a quick summary of all of their stats... but again, I hope, as time goes on, we will all feel more comfortable with trusting the trophy points.
On a final note, the LIKES system is a very powerful tool. I know it gets a bad rap on Facebook and Instagram, but here you get a bit of a more honest representation and it is a good way to see if someone is posting valuable content. It is easy to post a lot (high post counts), but the question is, are you posting things that other members find valuable? Likes help determine that.