Well that is always an option and one that has been levied against the press for decades. The awards have always somehow correlated with how much they spend on advertising and other ways to grease the wheels...funny how that works.
Another way to look at this though is that anybody who claims to be "a reviewer" is a clueless fucktard just looking for recognition. They don't actually have any true insight into this, let alone experience to make meaningful comparisons, they can just wax lyrically about some utter BS that nobody understands. I do wonder how many electrostats those "reviewers" had experience with before awarding this best of 2018. If you don't have any frame of reference, it is easy to be seduced and not scratch the surface of how these actually sound.