Andy_Langton - 12:11 pm on Sep 30, 2012 (gmt 0)

To use a slightly over-worn analogy, if you went to a bookstore and asked them for the 'best' book to help you learn flower-arranging, you may have an expectation that they would be providing an 'expert' answer of some kind, based on a deeper knowledge of the contents of the available books than might be expected of a layman.

Being offered a book on the basis that 'no-one has complained about this book' or 'this is the most popular' might be satisfactory, but lacks expertise. As far as search engines go, over-reliance on "layman's" opinions would be the makings of a mediocre search engine, not a brilliant one. But you wouldn't have a lot of complaints ;)