I'd argue that such a system would be much better at avoiding the current political swamp, if the reputation/trust was relative to your personal trust into cert

I'd argue that such a system would be much better at avoiding the current political swamp, if the reputation/trust was relative to your personal trust into certain individuals and research directions. E.g. we might view different close people as trustworthy or judge their research with different value, which in turn have their subjective judgement. That subjective judgement is inherent in the scientific method and allows different opinions to compete until the truth emerges. I think that the web of trust should reflect that and give you a personalized score for each paper based on a trust network between public keys.