OK, maybe we've busted goatee's chops enough...
But despite his lack of 'curability' (sorry, 85003, couldn't resist), he does raise a valid point. Sometimes it seems that the looks ratings are inflated.
I see 2 main reasons for this:
1) The girl's got talent!
This is the big one, I think. Several times I have walked in the room, thinking that this girl is a GND, kind of pretty, but no great beauty. And then she completely rocks my world, and by the time I walk out the door on wobbly legs, she looks like a frickin' demi-goddess to me.
So, on those occasions I tend to 'round it up'. If the girl was a 7/8, I'll put down 8. (But not 9, I try to restrain myself. Maybe not everyone can do that...) Conversely, if the girl was mediocre BCD, I'll round it down...
2) Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!
I'm not that attracted to big, busty blondes. I prefer svelte, dark-skinned brunettes. Maybe you're the opposite. So, you'd give the former a higher score than me, and lower for the latter. If the guys the girl saw before happened to think she was their ideal, her looks score might seem 'inflated' to you.
Of course, these factors don't explain the "Whoa, WTF!" experience when the reviews prepared you for a 9, and what is before you is clearly a 5/6. But this almost never happens, assuming that the girl had MANY reviews from established reviewers. If she only had 1 or 2, and you don't know who those reviewers were, then maybe they're shills. It happens. But I have never experienced a time when the girl was WAY below what I expected based on many independent, reputable reviewers. (Unless she returned to the business after a break of a few years -- that happened to me once...)
What about the rest of you -- who has experienced that goatee is complaining about?