Personally I have seen good and bad things. For me, if I see a player with a very low number, I see someone I might want to help out and team with.. especially if they are getting mauled by the maelstrom.
I have seen others snub them, or worse, try to take advantage of them. Last night, in response to an idea about battle strategy, I saw one player say to the other "what do you know, you are only a tent.. (ten) I could imaging the crushed face behind the fig, and I wished for the first time we could smash a player.
For my personal play, it makes no difference to me.. I am in no rush to accumulate more points, I just do what I feel like doing each time I play. 2Mak07 gets excited every time he gets another point though, so that is WAY kewl.
I do wish we could see FTP players property tho.
Yes it's unfortunate that almost any stat brings out the competitive nature in players, which can sometimes be ugly. But I agree with 2Mak07, it's very motivating as well, I'm not motivated to do all kinds of missions and achievements that I wouldn't have care about before.