First off anything you do online to get your self noticed will help your online presence and help gain trust between you and you readers. the more times and places you show up the more credibility you gain.

This holds true in the hub pages community because we are real people that are viewing what you write and wanting to know who you are.

As for page rank are you referring to the search engines or your rank in hub pages. Your rank in hub pages directly relates to the amount of particapation in the community.

Well participation and quality also holds true for search engines its just the way it is online today. with all the crap and scams out there today who would want to listen to or do business with a name less faceless Pearson.

Don't forget Google loves hub pages so they index it often and if they happen to find something you have written and can easily link it to you again from the same profile it can only help YOU.