I hear you making a meta-point about how your life viewpoint at any given point in time, can color the reviews (of anything). This is true.
I'll say this.
I'm not great at reading rules and making sense out of them. I am mostly sure that that was an intentional move -- to increase revenue -- keep them vague!
The reason I mention that -- is that some of my reviews don't even take the rules or code into account. (I am so focused on layout and the sounds.) And when someone is generous with his time, and shows me the game rules, I tend to come home and up the rating a little bit...
It's funny the different ways various games wind their ways into our hearts, and apparently one of my favorite ways is when someone gives me a guided tour...
ALSO, leaving a number rating for a game is tricky business. I have most games on a scale from 6-10. I do that because I think most pinball is good. My main goal in ranking them is to find a way to put them all in order in my mind/heart... Whether I started at 1 or 6 doesn't matter in my system, but I choose to kinda start at 6 as my way of honoring most games to some degree... Now if I got to rating 800+ games like you, then I'd be hard-pressed to use the entire strength of the decimal system and start my reviews at 1 and slowly work my way up... I am lucky to still be <100 ratings.
In my world, my ratings are bread crumbs for me...
So, I hope you can find a way to not give a rat's ass as to what anyone thinks about you or your reviews. For every disappointment, there are many other people out there appreciative that you've left so many thoughtful reviews.
-mof