After watching and thinking about this feature. I too have some concerns.

What is so difficult about thanking someone in a thread? The old fashioned way?

To me that is more meaningful than clicking a button.
Then to show statistics on the profile as well? I definitely think that part of the feature is a bit childish. I think I could live with tallies within a post. But to tally for the whole board reminds me of middle school. Sorry, it just does.
For inexperienced computer users, tallies like this can be dunning. Think how it will look in 6mos or a year. Giving stars and tallies like this work for reinforcing kids, but seem inappropriate for adults.

How easy for a troll to find a new target (recall the troll post here?).
For every "troll" who might want to break into a forum, there are non-troll posters who
are too shy to even attempt it.

I hate to say, this feature which looks good on paper, is very much like
the stars to rate a thread.