You are right to be skeptical.
Markets all over the world and throughout time have had "price discovery" determined only by what people are willing to pay. I'm sure there are tokens and projects with a genuine value-add to offer, but sadly too much rubbish to sort through to find them.
Some kind of token rating webpage might be a good idea, it's getting more difficult to keep up with everything. I still have to try that prospectors game by the way :)
Sounds like a good idea, though it would be plenty of work.
Prospectors is going well. I'll probably push an update out in the next few days as it's launched on mainnet and goes free-to-play on June 29.