I think staff used to give out a t-shirt or something when you hit a certain amount of points, but they discontinued that because of spammers. Don't quote me on this though, I'm not sure.
Regarding your question, they are as you described them. An activity meter of sorts. There wasn't an intended point beyond that. I agree though, the concept could be built off of in some way.
Yes, I realize this question has been asked many times. Yes, I know that points are a measure of how "sociable" you are on chess.com. What I don't get is why we have them. So it shows that you are active in the forums. Big deal. It's a chess website, not Facebook. Why do we need "point"less "points" to show something so irrelevant? I know some may disagree, but I'm just stating my opinion.
Now, if points could be used for a practical purpose, then that would be ideal. For example, if you get 25,000 points, you get a free Gold month for example, or something like that. That may not be the best example, as something like that would attract spammers. But what if there were a points leaderboard or something? There could be a percentile ranking for them just like there is for Online Chess. Other examples include a tee shirt for a certain amount of points, or a chess.com memorabilia something-or-other, stuff like that.
Thoughts?