Rep Change -> Hidden factor?

[Cristiona]

...that it can take more than 4 choices?

...that some of them worked the wrong axis?

[Cristiona]

Sure you can. I moved from Vigilante to Pragmatic to Watchdog to Altruist to Virtuous to Honorable all in one day.

[Ryme]

Uh, did you do the u-district choices back to back?

[Ryme]

Wait, are you talking about two different choices in that mix? That wasn't clear from your original post, which made it sound like you did the same choice twice. Rather than two different choices in two different zones under the same container.

Still, I do think it's possible for what you described to have happened and for it to have been necessary to get a fifth choice to fully change the reputation over from one to the other.

[Ryme]

From what you describe, things look exactly right. Even with the bandwagon, it takes more than 3 choices to shift your reputation to the opposite end of the spectrum.

My primary assumption above was that choosing the same choice in the same adventure twice doesn't do anything;

As you note, this isn't true. There IS something of a trick here, and it's recorded in the wiki, but I'm not gonna spoil it here in the help forum.

In summary: you're making too many assumptions, everything is working exactly as intended. Your "current conclusion" as you describe it isn't too unreasonable, though.