I know what a need, I make the search for myself based on my need, I use it and if dont work for me.. look another..simple as that, use the brain
one personal example:
I allways look for GTK2 applications and use a engine like Mist or ThinIce
my .gtkrc-2.0 is tunned
then I run gtkperf -a
for testing the response time
the collective experience or user ratings wont do that for me, instead I got a ugly..ugly and slow gtk3
application but the "users choice" say that is shinny and with a lot of effects and work fine
For now and in this time this is important for me because I want performance , but in 30/40 years
It wont matter,because the times changes and the hardware too,much more ram,more powerfull
procesors,etc
but for now...I do the search for myself