IMDb ratings no longer reliable

Rating: 1/10 (25 February 2013)

First of all, let me just establish the follow IMDb film ratings as a reference:

A Clockwork Orange: 8.5 - Aliens (1986): 8.5 - American Beauty: 8.5 - Full Metal Jacket: 8.4 - Chinatown: 8.4 - Fargo: 8.2 - Donnie Darko: 8.1 - A Scanner Darkly: 7

These are the kind of movies that get (and should get) 8+ ratings. They have real content. They're innovative, original, intelligent and thought-provoking. They're timeless classics.
But the comparison may not be too fair, being such different genres. How does it REALLY stand up to Batman Begins (8.3), Watchmen (7.6), or any of the X-Men series, none of which reached and 8? These are all meant to fascinate and woe the same kind of target: comic-book fans, adrenaline-pumped teenagers and action-yearning males. Yet they are aeons away in terms of originality, depth, story and execution from 2012's The Avengers.
I don't really have much of a gripe with "The Avengers" itself, as after seeing Captain America, I expected nothing more than another formulaic blockbuster. Even so, it's pretty bad even for a fill-in-the-villain/superhero/threat formula movie. A ridiculous super villain, flat characters, no excitement (as you know how things are going to turn out)
My disappointment is mostly with IMDb. I'd trusted their rating in the past, but it seems as if that reliability is no longer. Either all the reviews are now being written by 10-year-olds, IMDb users are losing brain cells at an incredible pace, or something's pretty fishy.
How many reviews that are titled things like "Awesome! Blew my mind!", or "Coolest superhero movie ever!", that you'd expect to be full of teenage adulation, grammatical mistakes and tons of slang, are actually very articulately written, displaying profound knowledge of script, direction, acting, and character analysis? I thought our education system was going down the drain! Where are all these lucid, eloquent, youths hiding out? And, being so instructed and discerning as they are, why the hell are they giving such a poorly made, mediocre movie such high scores?
It looks like the industry's eye has finally set on IMDb's viewer-decanting power, and is corrupting it's authenticity beyond recognition. From now on, I guess I'll have to look elsewhere for real, trustworthy reviews.