Consumer Reports is really the only objective measurement out there. Considering the various federal agencies do this for many many other things for certificat

Consumer Reports is really the only objective measurement out there. Considering the various federal agencies do this for many many other things for certification/regs ... why not have them also do ratings? You need objective tests and experienced testers. We know from restaurant recommendations online (4 stars +/_ .2 stars for EVERYTHING) that in the general public there is far too much variance in "good". Of course the "experts" often fall into the "audiophile" trap in stereos, where a perfectly functional cheap alternative is downplayed for a laundry list of features or a pretty packaging. I mean, we are talking about toasters here. I wonder how much easier it is for OP to simply walk into China and get a factory setup to do this. Probably some bribes involved but the net cost might be less than regulatory approval here. Then get Chinese manufacturing work and the reverse-migrate a factory here. If I was overlord of the US, I would be actively pushing US companies to start doing this with heavy US government coopoeration. You know, like China did to us.