ICO Listing Sites:is the project plugged in? If so, how well? Did they make an effort to reach out to listing sites and, if so, what do their ratings look like on the listing sites? Don't give any attention on sponsored ICO or paid promotional ICO.
Interesting to see that ICO listing sites are increasingly required. I mostly agree with you, however, lots of those listing sites are of low quality and remind me of rubbish link directories that were popular in the early days of SEO. Need to separate the good from the bad. Sponsored ICO listings aren't always a red flag, but they should definitely be trusted less than manually vetted ones.