Yea, a point system would work decently, but as you mentioned there is the problem where certain reviewers give higher and lower ratings than one another. With

Yea, a point system would work decently, but as you mentioned there is the problem where certain reviewers give higher and lower ratings than one another. With a large enough sample size you should still get fairly accurate ratings. A 1 vs 1 system based on elo eliminates all of these issues though and helps you find accurate ratings much faster. The system doesn't need to stop individual discussion, you should be allowed to post responses to the applications as your are reviewing them to vote on. You should also be allowed to directly view and comment on an application by going to it directly as long as you aren't allowed to do anything that affects its rating.