"Your reputation level determines which quests you can start; NPCs are reluctant to trust a complete stranger with any but the most trivial of tasks. You gain reputation by completing quests, which in turn opens up more quests that you can do to earn more reputation. With a good reputation, the NPCs will feel comfortable asking you to do difficult tasks with correspondingly greater rewards."

The ffxiclopedia.com's description of what Reputation, also called Fame, is...

If only this was true. The description should have said instead "... You gain reputation by repeating quests , which in turn opens up more quests that you can do to earn more reputation... your reputation is greatly dependant on repetition and not the amount of different quests you finish within a city/nation."

Having 10 levels in abyssea would have been a better consept I think. When you finish all quests in a zone, you get 1 fame level (just like you do today). Then your fame lvl would be lvl 2 in each zone. Sharing the fame level in this way would have been a much better alternative IMO. And when you have finished all the quests ,you still would have 9/10 wich would lead to a litle repetition (lets say 9 more quests) and you would be capped.

Much better approach I think.