You shouldn't speak on behalf of anyone unless you can provide verifiable quotations/records.
I speak on behalf of myself. Perhaps it wasn't clear since you've decided to quote only one sentence from that paragraph. This is what I mean: reputation that can be easily brought up by donating at temples. The manual tells you how much money you need to donate to raise it, including at rock bottom. When a feature is described in the manual, then yes, I consider it intended by the devs.
I prefer to shave with Occam's razor: a gameplay mechanic intended to get players out of a hole (a caveat which in itself is a necessary evil), rather than a creative decision intended to produce a specific semi-farcical result.
