Rating Scale

In general I think the actual rating you give doesn't matter so much when it comes to your review although it is important when it comes to calculating the average rating as obtained by the community as has been pointed out - which I think is what is the really interesting aspect of the scoring system. I don't personally care much whether a particular reviewer gives an album four stars or five - what they actually write about the album tells me far more about the album and their reaction to it than the rating they give. I *do* care if the album, say, has a lot of 5-star reviews and a lot of 1-star reviews but not many 3-stars (which implies an incredibly divisive disc); in general I think the shape of the bar chart of review ratings is even more informative than the averaged score.

Bottom line: I think the rating system is fine as it is; the only problem with it is that people get too hung up on it, fussing over whether a particular album should have four stars or five. And really, that's not so much a problem with the system so much as a problem with people's attitudes to it: when we review we should be reviewing with an eye to conveying what we think about an album, not reviewing with an eye to fitting our thoughts into the scoring system.

Personally I'm a fan of the 1-5 star system, it's simple and each rating has a clear meaning so I never have doubts about where to put an album. If there were half stars, I would probably try to avoid using them.