You’re right that SE’s culture is awful (I just today experienced an example proving your point).

With the score I mean the user’s score. I’m still undecided if it is a good thing at all, because in a way it rates people, but on the other hand you could say the quality of your posts determines your rating. After all, it’s gamification. Once you implement a metric for something, people will start optimizing the metric instead of what’s being measured, which is another point in favour of ditching a user score.

Having an accepted answer or not gives you a quick hint though if further engagement is requested. I’d think of it as a useful marker for people coming to the platform where their time is best spent.