I'm trying to remember when I first became cognizant of the fact that there was even a reputation tab on my character portrait. I do know that the first time I was aware of Reputation was my first visit to Menethril Harbor when I went up to guy with the horses and he told me I had to be Exalted with Stormwind before I could get one.I was a level 20 Night Elf who had just ventured off of Teldrassil for first time ever and kept taking the boat all around to explore this strange new world.
But I never took the time to analysis or even worry about rep until I got to Desolace and needed it for the whole Centaur thing, and even then I didn't really care about it until Argent Dawn and Timbermaw, when you could actually get some cool stuff by getting higher reps.
(Oh... I have a whole n00bish story about Argent Dawn Rep Rewards that I will tell sometime soon.. It was so stupid and it cost me a 1/3 of my gold!)
Anyway, you would think that by the time I got to Outland, I would know enough about Rep to not be stupid -- do things in the right order to maximize rep grinds. Well if you thought that, you'd be wrong. I barreled through Hellfire Peninsula and I'm still 3500 rep points away from being Revered with Honor Hold. (And they have some really nice rewards too!)
So, first and foremost, before you start a rep grind, do your research. wowwiki is the best for getting the nitty gritty on how to maximize your rep grinding points. (For example, it tells me that the first thing I should have done in Hellfire is kill Shattered Hands until I was Friendly, then I could start doing the quests, but I was anxious to get leveling so I did the quest for the experience right away, thats a n00b move.) There is also a Reputation Calculator that shows how to maximize your grind based on your armory profile, but its not working right now (40,000 hits crashed the free web service that was hosting it).
Now, I'm not saying abandon all fun or your playing style to maximize Rep, but if it is important you, look at the rewards and the best way to get the reputation and then go about doing it your own way.
