The system is in place to help prevent a great deal of abuse that can happen, and it has been adjusted over time to help address situations like you describe. I don’t know if we’re willing to remove it entirely, but it has been under discussion.
As for action taken, our moderation team does take action for verified abuse of the system. Understand though, we do not wish to discourage folks using the reporting system. They are allowed to be uncertain if a thread may not be in violation and reporting to ask that it be reviewed. For obvious false reported our moderation will and does penalize the verified accounts.
No system is perfect and we will continue to review our systems and work on making improvements. Those do take time though.
Keep in mind, this forum and, by extension, Support forum agents like myself, are not moderators nor do we design or maintain these forums. You are welcome to post your feedback in the relevant areas of the forum, such as Website Bug Report.