DavidW,
I doubt if reputation is of much concern for Google people. They are dancing with their search algorithms all the time, they hide their own statistics in Website Trends, they're giving regular slaps to those who pay them money in AdWords. They're making uncertain claims about paid links and don't follow their own rules.
Would you do that to your clients and would you do that if you really care about your reputation?
p.s. I still use Google, because there's no substitute for it at the moment
