I'm curious how you distinguish a consolidated reputation system from a centralized one. I would expect that a consolidated system, in which one can get the sam

I'm curious how you distinguish a consolidated reputation system from a centralized one. I would expect that a consolidated system, in which one can get the same answer to the same reputation query from multiple places and perhaps multiple parties, to effectively be a centralized, distributed system. It seems to me like a distinction without difference - what am I missing? Once you have a strong centralized reputation system, you are pretty close to having re-centralized your decentralized system once again. Especially in a context where a relatively small number of systems send and receive most of the email to begin with.