I've been a long time fan of HardOCP, but I'm getting really sick of there reviews, and I think they need to raise their standards. Take this PS for example, they determined that it runs great, but 99% of home users won't be able to use it. That should be an immediate disqualification for any award.
The number of awards being given out has been steadily increasing. This is probably because hardware is getting better and more reliable. When you start giving silver and gold awards to everything you review, they loose their meaning. I think it's time [H]OCP upped it's standards to include usability, price , efficiency and customer satisfaction. If a PS runs great but will trip the breaker in your house, it's useless and should be stated as such. If a spankin new video card can run your favorite new game at 60+ FPS with all the highest settings, but costs close to $1,000 and needs 2 power plugs to run, it's not practical for most users (sure there is some kid out there whose parents will get him one just to shut him up for a few days) and deserves at most a silver award.
I've gotten to the point that when I see a new review for something I immediately skip to the end to see what award they give it. If it gets one, I almost never read the article. The awards used to mean that the product was well built and practical for users, no more.
Side note:
The number of times I've wondered if [H]OCP took a payoff for a review has been steadily increasing as well
So because your home is old and outdated that the PSU should be rated poorly? FWIW, I have 20 and 30 amp outlets in my computer area, I can run this baby just fine.
With your logic that this should be rated bad because it's used by 1% people, shouldn't 8800GTX's, QX processors, FX Processors, Dual motherboards, Quad cores, Silverstone cases, Lian-Li higher end cases, be all rated bad too?... I mean after all, most people don't use these products.
Incase you haven't noticed, performance takes over all forms of practicality, it's like this in sports and in the computing world.... hence why super computers are rooms in size, hence why snowboarder pros prefer strap in bindings to the convenient step in bindings, hence why racers prefer multi point seat belts and harnesses vs easy to use car seatbelt... etc etc etc.
I don't really read the article, as IMO all articles have opinions, I look at the pictures, the graphs (loads, performance, etc), and the specs and draw my own conclusions. I don't look at awards either but I look at the entire review spectrum... one good reward and a ton bad don't look good.. so you average them out and draw your own conclusions.