Anyone else notice rating scales are getting inflated?

Totally agree with OP. My other pet peeve is lack of photos. It's amazing to me that sellers will list a piece of equipment for over $1k and provide a single photo of the gear in his rack. If they are so lazy that they won't pull it out and take photos of every side I move on. If you've ever watched Antiques Roadshow you are familiar with the phrase, "Condition is everything."

It seems that grading is getting inflating in the world of used vinyl sales.  NM doesn't seem to mean what it used to ...sigh

A few months ago there was a speaker listing in which one of the tweeters was pushed in. The speakers were rated an "8".  I called this out to the poster, who responded that it was only the "dust cover" of the tweeter and didn't affect the sound. When I pointed out that dome tweeters don't have dust caps, he simply changed the rating to a "7" and the ad copy to say that the sound was only "minimally" affected. The price remained the same.

How a speaker set with one dented tweeter could even be considered a 7 or 8 is beyond me.

I think there should be a rating of "11" as something deemed you're not worthy of owning. Or a "zero" rating for something that has actually disappeared.