Yeah, you are right there I think.
But as often you are forgetting the implications of review scores outside the immediacy of games themselves, as you say I personally dont have an objection with honest review scores, I understand they represent a particular experience, which is fine but they also can be used for motives fully outside the games themselves, and as you say it's hard to judge the reviewer when someone plays the "its just my opinion" card.
I personally believe the question about what should the average score be, is rather pointless. I do find it funny that people want 10's for their fanboyish needs. But I also find it funny that anyone thinks 5 should be the average, since most games released are normally not just "a test" but a number of tests, QA corrections, talented artists, and dedicated developers. Not to say that no game is BAD, there are many BAD BAD games, but as a whole, the quality of products that actually get published is at least technically quite proeficient. So its hard to judge it out of context.
Of course, the world is not going to end because a review score responds more to money pressures or the desire to stand out, but it can be annoying, especially when someone takes games seriously.
And dont get me wrong, for me the important aspects in a review are: clarity, coherence, honesty and the intention of objectivity. When Yahtzee does a critique, I don't ask those values, because I expect it to be a more visceral, raw and personal view of the game, but he does not score them either, which makes perfect sense to me.
You may be a good reviewer, and as such professional, someone who wants to really inform the audience about the quality of a game based on a coherent score that you give. But as good as you might be, it doesn't mean you are the norm, or that it doesnt lend itself to bad practices.
The problem is when these situations start blending: A pretty funny case was a single negative review I read of this year's Journey in a web called quarter-to-three(which is the only negative review of the game that you can probably find anywhere). I personally thought that beyond any technical criticisms (and many can be had), Journey was a fantastic, well crafted experience, that spoke insightfully to the current state of gaming as a whole and managed to debase my "artsy fartsy" worries by also delivering an extremely engaging -game-. But then I found this review that spoke with almost inslting ignorance (almost felt trolling), and I couldn't find any other explanation for it other than getting hits on their web.
Is this ok? I suppose, but it bothers me as much as when resident evil 6 gets a suspiciously inflated score on IGN even when the written review is actually quite critical about it $$. More than a review these are ADs for different motives.
Let me ask you Jim, are you okay with paid reviews? Is it fine if a company offers money to get their product rated higher as to -cheat- people into consuming? I don't like it in any order of things, I can't lie.
Am I going to go on a murderous rampage because of it? no. But in my views it does shine a negative light on the ecosystem as a whole.
So, no I dont think review scores are the issue, obviously. As everything -objects- Guns, Bombs and Drugs are not the problem, its what people do with them... but that would have been a more interesting discussion that we chose to avoid here.. again