I don't know if Waves fabricate their reviews - I wouldn't be surprised.  I believe they were the ones having stooges go to local studios about booking, asked if they had Waves products, and then Waves would check to see if the copies were legal.  If not the lawyers wrote,  demanding money.
 
As far as mag reviews, a long time ago many of those European computer mags got caught - one guy writing essentially the same review on the same software for different mags (or so I heard).  But to paraphrase Bit, most reviews are done by reviewers who want to review the software (or hardware) for their own use.  And many of the reviews are done by magazine staff (look at the various editors at SOS and the bylines).  And lastly, reviewing isn't much money.  In fact, one is likely to make a whole less than minimum wage on waging if you do a decent job.  I remember getting my first paystub teaching college English.  I was making over $30 an hour, which seemed impressive in the 80s.  But it worked out to only $200 a week for 6 hours of teaching, not including prep, grading papers and meeting w/ students.  Not to mention travel - 99th & riverside way up in manhattan to the ass-end of Brooklyn.  I had to leave 2 hours early in case I had to wait for changing trains, tho it usually only took an hour.  It was a minimum wage deal when all was said and done.  That isn't to say some reviewers are schlock.  And some musicians are simply really bad players, but doesn't mean the rest of y'all are.
 
Besides, it is a bit much to expect bottom dwelling music magazines to have more integrity than the major news outlets whose  headlines might as well scream, "Some guy said this was true!"  As always, buyer beware, if you know your latin. 

Mesh
Where does the "no brainer" fall in with that list?

For me Mesh, it's a "Lifestyle" issue. Seriously, it's like Kenny said. You still have to sift through things a bit but you know who you can trust at these forums. You know who the "straight shooters" are. Or you can just hang around until someone tells you to buy it. (usually Fleer) 

Mesh
Where does the "no brainer" fall in with that list?

I guess when it comes to a " no brainer " deal we all may have different and unique points of view .
Also additional personal resources and financial outlets may come into play ...
Someone may have income being generated VIA their musical productions and skills on a continual regular basis.. They may view their purchases as an investment . When they get a no brainer deal it only serves to sweeten the deal.
Someone else may have offloaded an instrument they were looking to sell for a while just to be able to free up and have some extra money to have available to play around with ...
Another guy or a gal may think it's perfectly OK to max out their CC. 's for what they consider a good deal ...
I myself do not have the extra coin to bite on as many deals as I would like so I just do the best I can with what I have ...
For me a no brainer deal has to be worth the extra aggravation of me having to drive my 20 year old POS car w only a quarter tank of gas in it while my socks and underwear may or may not still  have holes in them 
I'm not kidding ....I lost some great deals recently because I went back to the gym and I had to buy new duds just to be able to work out again in public 
 
Anyway, I thought BassDaddy's list covered the no brainer description in spades  if you leave out the first sentience about journalists  
 
all the best,
 
Kenny
 
 

AT
In fact, one is likely to make a whole less than minimum wage on waging if you do a decent job.

 
True that!  And it's true whether one is paid with money or instead simply gets to keep a free NFR copy of the software obtained for reviewing purposes.  Maybe the folks at SoS get decent compensation - I certainly hope so because I have much respect for many of the writers affiliated with that publication.  But most of us reviewers do this just because we dig this stuff.  It's "kid in a candy store" much of the time ... and that's enough, or we wouldn't be doing it.

sharke
So it sounds much like the situation on Amazon when half the reviews you read include the disclaimer "I posted this impartial (ha!) review in exchange for a discount." In other words, a complete load of bollocks. 

I believe there's a way to benefit from amazon reviews that is learned after a while.  I think I have a pretty good sense of finding the reviews that contain useful, helpful content on amazon.  But I've been using amazon reviews for many years now.  It's pretty easy to spot the genuine goods from the fluff.  Of course, it probably depends upon what type of item is being reviewed.  I look at a lot of book reviews and find much guidance in those.  With music (CDs) it's harder because someone may be perfectly excellent at communicating their opinions but happen to like a type of music that you cannot stand.
 
The reviews I have a problem with are the reviews that state things like: "broke after two weeks of light use".  We know by now that a common deceptive practice are troll reviews written by competitors.  I don't think one can learn to accurately spot that kind of abuse.

 I don't know of any company that allows negative reviews on their sites.

I'm a big fan of Carl Hiaasen's novels but one of them turned out to be a real stinker. I mean so truly awful compared to his other books. Halfway through I was curious enough to look up reviews of it online. Almost all of the newspaper reviews rated it highly, calling it a "classic Hiaasen romp" with "all the usual winning ingredients" etc. The plot outlines in the reviews seemed to have been taken from the synopsis on the book itself. It got me to thinking that a lot of book reviews are made up. Why wouldn't they be? It's a lot of effort to read a novel, make notes and formulate a thoughtful review based off of them - all for a little piece in the paper which hardly anyone will read.

dmbaer

sharke
So it sounds much like the situation on Amazon when half the reviews you read include the disclaimer "I posted this impartial (ha!) review in exchange for a discount." In other words, a complete load of bollocks. 

I believe there's a way to benefit from amazon reviews that is learned after a while.  I think I have a pretty good sense of finding the reviews that contain useful, helpful content on amazon.  But I've been using amazon reviews for many years now.  It's pretty easy to spot the genuine goods from the fluff.  Of course, it probably depends upon what type of item is being reviewed.  I look at a lot of book reviews and find much guidance in those.  With music (CDs) it's harder because someone may be perfectly excellent at communicating their opinions but happen to like a type of music that you cannot stand.
 
 

My favourite ever amazon review (for Fire tv stick)...
 
I bought this as an electronic babysitter, for my husband, who is five. Oh, wait, not five, 48. I was pig-sick of him watching Netflix on his mobile phone, with his netbook pinging up Facebook messages, with the TV on full blast, and the sound from his Netflix leaking out of his earphones, because he had that on full volume as well, to counter-balance whatever was happening on the TV he wasn't watching. It has worked a treat, as he now watches endless hours of crap on the big TV, while his netbook and phone ping Facebook messages at him, and he lies on the couch, re-arranging his crotch, and grunting.
The installation was easy, despite the fact that I only have full use of one hand, I didn't need any screwdrivers, and I'm not allowed hammers anyway. I did stand on an apple that the dog had taken behind the TV, for dog-reasons, and it squidged between my toes a bit, but I don't suppose that's a universal installation issue, not everyone having a dog that hides fruit behind the TV.
The plug-and-play nature of the device meant that I was able to install without asking for help from a man, and I didn't even break any fingernails. I'm relatively certain I've deleted any links to my social media from Amazon, so the husband won't be able to ferret about, at two in the morning, while he's watching something with boobs in, or yet another concert from the time period when I was being potty-trained, and see all of the nasty things I say about him.
For me, it has been £35 well-spent, although the glut of adverts offering it for £25 have been a bit of a kick in the crotch, I could have spent the extra £10 on gin, but it would have been cheap gin, so there would have been no real gain.

BassDaddy

Mesh
Where does the "no brainer" fall in with that list?

For me Mesh, it's a "Lifestyle" issue. Seriously, it's like Kenny said. You still have to sift through things a bit but you know who you can trust at these forums. You know who the "straight shooters" are. Or you can just hang around until someone tells you to buy it. (usually Fleer) 

Badassador of Bassdaddor, if you please.

What's really starting to get annoying - and we've only seen the tip of the proverbial iceberg in the music software realm: YouTube "reviews" that are nothing more than clickbait to generate ad revenue. Somebody slaps together a 10-minute piece that's little more than one of those pointless "unboxing" videos, containing no useful information. It's not astroturfing, but in some ways it's worse. Astroturfing doesn't usually require an investment of several minutes to find out you've been tricked.