I applaud the idea of a topic rating system, something I've wanted for a while...
Unless I'm not finding the right place to set it, it seems every post start on 4 stars (it says avg?).I think it would work better if a posting started at a default of not rated (maybe effectively zero?), so effively making the scale go from zero to 5 rather than 1 to 5. Obviously an admin option is screaming out for a default rating level being either 0 like I want or whatever the admins want. 4 seems very arbitary. Again, unless I'm missing where it settable (with 150+ new admin options Im sure I could be missing it!)
I see the "rate post" at the post's top right, i'd also kinda like to see thestar/rating underneath the author block as thats where I was naturally looking for it and took me ages to find where it was! Ive seen plenty of nice javascript/ajax versions that would show the current rating and allow the person to slide over it and vote (says thanks, then updates average) personally.
Also, the new points system should allow admins to set point allocations to add 1-5 based on a postings rating - perhaps the average so it gives a maximum or minimum based on the settings. Seems a small mossion from the points system.
I would also suggest that the 1-5 system have an admin option where you can set the values and labels - for me I would run a system of
1 star Rubbish -1 points,
2 Accepitble 0 points ,
3 Ok +1 point,
4 Good +2 points,
5 excellent +4 points
Obviously this should be user configurable for titles and points.
Lastly a uesr profile (or perhaps underneath their posts should show an average of their ratings) in additon to the group stars - givign and almost feedback-like system to the ratings and points
These are just my suggestions - a great start to have ratings at all, but a shame imho theyre not links to the points and the aribrary 4 star rating seems weird to me as every post (bearing in mind I have 35k of legacy posts) are all showing 4 stars!