@Popcxqueen  LOL, I'm exactly the same - looking at the page of a Japanese series I'm often thinking "Are you people nuts giving this masterpiece a 7.7 while that dull formulaic [insert name of, just for the sake of argument, any of 95% of Thai series] an 8.6?!? 

There seems to be a connection between series length and scoring - shorter works appear to get punished. No matter what a work of art it is, a 30-min short will almost never break 8, and if it' s twelve 45-min eps, it gets a higher score - and Japanese series tend to be shorter.  Also, there is a whiff of nationalism in some quarters which seems to play into it.

 Popcxqueen:
I've been noticing that people can rate episodes before they've aired, and that's definitely a problem, as it can skew the overall ratings,

I didn't realize this is why some series have ratings. I just tried this, and it DOES work to rate an episode.

Here is another example (I already submitted a bug report) https://mydramalist.com/60637-hemp-rope/episode/1