Think they'd get a few applicants, Dan? 
Matt has suggested this as well and it's very logical that such would be the best way to do this. BUT... do you seriously think that's ever going to happen? The rankings work just fine, at least for the 99% of magazine readers who know nothing about this web site, anyway. There is zero incentive to change, even assuming the magazines wanted to spend this kinda money on something they get basically for free now...
Tom IV --
I could not care one Whit(ten) if it's ever going to happen!
I'm sure you're right: It's never going to happen -- any more than Golf Digest and Golf Magazine are ever going to stop publishing their annual (semi-annual? bimonthly?) Sure-Fire Cure for Your Slice! (Not YOUR slice, Tom IV. I have it on good authority that yours is a fade -- and a well-controlled one, at that!)
I'm sure you're right: There's no incentive (except, possibly, some internally supplied drive for excellence) for the magazines to change the way they do business.
So they won't.
All's right with the world!
Well, maybe.
Capitalism -- including all branches of the golf business -- is cluttered with people who are perfectly content to do things the cheap, profitable (albeit shoddy) way. Nothing I can do about that.
All I'm saying is: The way I suggest they should do these ratings is the way I think it would be done best -- which, the way I look at the world (and the way the architects this Discussion Group admires most look at the world), is the only way to do something if you're going to do it at all.
Call me a pipe dreamer. I've been called that here before -- and have pled Guilty.