Boomer. BCS schools buy the majority of recruiting site subscriptions.
Therefore, they want to see their name listed at the top. So, bigger schools get more stars, big school fan thinks, wow recruiting is exciting. I better keep my subscription renewed, and tell friends to buy one.
Cajun T does an amazing job following this stuff, but these recruiting services many times because they give deference to big time coaches at big time programs assume rightly or wrongly sometimes that a kid is better because LSU signed him over TCU .
Recruiting is a crapshoot, it always has been. These guys find a way to try to do the same thing that coaches do. Locate the best players, and make money off of it. You know, finding the best player is not an easy task. A lot of these talent "evaluators" have never coached. I'm not saying they are not good, I think Cajun T is great, but for every Cajun T, there may be one or two who spend half the time doing it, and may rank a kid one way or another based on a number of factors that have nothing to do with kids ability.
Here's how you win in recruiting. Your staff has connections, your staff can find players, your staff can sign those players. Until Rivals or Scout starts giving out a crystal ball, I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over it.
(However, I will admit that generally climbing the recruiting rankings is a good thing. But, I think in order to overcome some perception problems we will have to win with these players before recruiting services think that the guys we sign or as good as some of the guys the big boys sign.)