Such an interesting point, especially paired with the additional survey point (24% of people care about it as their #1 reason). It is one of the things that I do miss about Zagat being a top user guide - you could prioritize the things you cared about most (food, service, decor -- or cost), whereas a simple 1-5 rating does not give you that level of granularity unless you want to sift through reviews individually.

However, unfortunately that's a problem that TripExpert doesn't seem to solve with their new TripExpert Score (http://www.tripexpert.com/about#score)