Someone on the forum asked if the number of awards a track receives could make the track overrated.
My reply was as follows....
Awards are simply a visual representation of the number of people who liked the track. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Overrate means...
- to rate or appraise too highly
Something being "overrated" has nothing to do with the number of awards it has.
What you actually think of a map might mean you overrate it, especially if you are totally biased towards the author, the style, or some other aspect of the map. Perhaps it's just nostalgic to you and reminds you of the first time you played TrackMania. The number of awards may even affect your view of the map. If it were possible to look at the map objectively, you might not think as much of the map as you actually do. Thus, you overrate it. That's not necessarily bad. It's just human.
Maps can be overrated by individuals, but not by a group.
People throw around the word overrated because it sounds like the track is getting more awards than they think it deserves. Maps do feed off their own popularity. The more popular the track gets, the more exposure it gets, and the more likely someone will try it who likes it... thus increasing it's possibility to receive yet another award.
So popular maps benefit from their own popularity. But it doesn't mean the map is "overrated", as we learned the term doesn't apply to this scenario. It only means that the map has benefited from maximum exposure.
Those who think a track has too many awards fail to understand that the number of awards a track has gives a very incomplete picture about the content of the map itself, except to say that it's a very good general purpose map that had a broad appeal.
Maps that fit a more niche style are less likely to have the broad appeal, even though they may be regarded on a technical level by some players as designed better, especially for that niche. Because they fit that niche... only those who appreciate the niche will award the map. Maps of these types will generally receive far less awards. But the map is still getting it's due, because it has pleased those players from that niche.
Obviously the type mentioned in the previous paragraph are never regarded as "overrated" because they receive so few awards. Instead, some label them as "underrated". Let's look at that word.
Underrate...
- to rate too low
A closely related word is undervalue...
- to value, rate, or estimate below the real worth
- to treat as having little value
Neither of these words necessarily apply to this niche map. Chances are, there are some users who played and appreciated the map.
In summary:
Any map can be underrated by a player.
Any map can be overrated by a player.
No maps are overrated or underrated by the group.
Although some maps can be completely ignored or missed by everyone, or by even the majority of a niche. But that's another issue.
The real "issue" with number of awards lies, not in how individuals rate a map, but in the exposure a track gets... and whether it has broad appeal or if its only catering to the specific skills and tastes of a niche group of drivers.
I'm actually quite glad not all maps have broad appeal. I enjoy many niche maps, and I hope many users continue to create them. 
In case you're wondering, niche (in the sense I'm using it) means...
- having specific appeal
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