I have read articles about icobench's ico experts asking for payment for a high rating. Thay made me think twice about using icobench as my reference for good icos. I am using icorating as of not and so far it's giving me good projects. Still, I'll check the latter links you shared. Definitely helpful.
Actually most of these listing sites has to earn from their service and operation and if they are ever asking for a payment to make the rating of those ICOs high, it is deceiving but they have to do it so don't depend on ones review, trust only your own assessment.
You can still use them just to see what are the new listings.
You're right. It is easy to pick an ico based on their rating however it is very hard to trust since some of the sites are paid for them to do a review. I only use these sites only for checking their raised funds and how much is their ico.
With icobench.com, I don't trust this site anymore because they had listed hashcard wherein initially rating was high and eventually it turned out that it is a scam ico. So the best option basically is to do your own research before investing to it.