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I don't think it's really fair to refer to Erogamescape as a popularity contest. After all, there're plenty of hyped bestsellers that haven't scored well (the Shuffle! series, for instance), not to mention unknown titles that are rated highly by the five or so people who vote in.
It's the same with many game review sites like PSMK2 or Amazon Japan. Again, some of the blockbuster hits don't rate well, while several niche ones do. As with all things, you have to take the data with a grain of salt since tastes differ (and the sampling isn't entirely indicative of the big picture. For instance, PSMK2 tends to attract hardcore gamers whereas Amazon reviewers tend to be mainstream consumers). Nonetheless, there's always some degree of merit to the info being presented.
I know some English-speaking fans are put off by the low scores that many domestic releases get -> i.e. Peach Princess, G-Collections, or Hirameki International releases. For that reason, Western fans are inclined to downplay Erogamescape since they personally like many of those poorly rated games.
In truth, many of those games aren't gems in the eyes of Japanese consumers either because they're genuinely mediocre or because they're too ordinary to be interesting (technically solid, but nothing that hasn't been done better in other works). It's kinda like the American console RPG market. Initially, many solid but bland/unextraordinary games were highly loved by genre fans. However, similar products were later viewed with indifference once the variety of available titles increased. Suddenly, a run-of-the-mill game wasn't good enough, and more hooks were needed to keep players interested.
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