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I totally get what you're saying about needing a filter. My filter for myself is as follows:
1) Some genres I just ignore. Past experience as a reader has told me they are not my thing.
2) Obnoxious authors, I ignore. Self-promotion is fine, but in non-obnoxious ways. For example, an author here only posted in their own thread and kept bumping it, complaining that nobody had read the book or that X people had downloaded it and none had reviewed it on Amazon. That just screams amateur to me.
3) Spelling/grammar mistakes or just bad writing in the blurb turn me away.
4) If we get this far (genre I like, interesting blurb, author playing nice) I will read the sample. If I like the sample, I'll buy the book
I do think reviewers will start to establish themselves and be the new taste-makers to a growing extent. I keep thinking of the parallels to my exercise video group---another niche market. Over time, I found that certain people seemed to share the same tastes as me, so I would especially notice reviews by them. I could reliably judge whether I would like a workout or not by what they thought of it...
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