Id actually say prestige is pretty important when it comes down to it. Several reasons.

1. It allows an alliance to intimidate others when it is millions of prestige higher then anything else.

2. Poeple say when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter. But honestly, You can have a huge army but not much prestige. You get in a fight and lose almost all of it. Well congratulations, your army sucks, and your prestige sucks. The guy who was getting loads of prestige is now loads better then you.

3.Poeople tend to leave you alone the higher prestige you have, but this could be dependant on the server. On server 90 I have around 280k, and I do enjoy going after 480k+. But the concept stands for the vast majority of players.

Does this mean that prestige is the most important thing ever, no. But prestige is a good measuring tool on which to judge poeple by. I have no idea why this would be considered an exploit. You lose the troops.