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I've been following this conversation with a little interest for a while.
Might I offer a few [undoubtedly complicating] suggestions? 

First, maybe separate the ratings into 3 groups: author rating, verified
raters, unverified raters, then show them in order of best rating to worst
rating. 

Second, use both types of words for rating. I can see rating a game
excellent, but not a favorite, or a game average, but a favorite. Let me
use Ben's game, TessChess, as an example. It is an excellent 4-D chess
variant. It may not be the best fully 4-D FIDE variant possible, but it is
certainly one of them. It is, unfortunately, essentially unplayable.
Computer assistance would be very beneficial to this game by showing all
the moves a piece could make, but the game would still be rather difficult.
Ben and I have discussed our 4-D games, and essentially agree on matters of
dimensionality and playability. HyperChess is not fully 4-D, but that makes
it humanly playable without aid. It even has a few fans. 

Third, group games by both clustering and category. Dimensionality would be
one obvious category, as would size, but I would suggest adding a few
groupings and categories that aren't differentiated here. There are a lot
of games that would fall under the [Los Alamos -] FIDE - Capablanca - Grand
Chess cluster, and could be called the 'pure FIDE' cluster, as they use
only the elements of FIDE. The Chinese variants, XiangQi, Janggi... are
another cluster, as are the shogis. But the shogis are also 'Drop' games,
games that bring reinforcements onto the board at some point[s] in the
game. Grin, and, at this point, shatranj variants would be another game
cluster, associated with a 'short range' category, and thus cousins of
the shogis, which also feature short ranged pieces.

The purpose of all this is to direct people to games they might like
quickly. We have around a thousand presets now, and a few times that in
total variants. If this is to be useful, we should offer patrons a useable
search mechanism. Is that possible with the resources we have?