I would like to add to this that the 1-star Kindle bombs also adversely affect NEGATIVE reviews.
I've seen books get 700+ negative reviews where 100 of the negative reviews were valid, thoughtful criticisms that I would like to read when considering the book for purchase, and the other 600 were Kindle bomb reviews that pretty much buried the thoughtful criticisms.
The problem here being, of course, that if the first 200 1-star reviews you read are Kindle bombs, it's easy to assume that the next 500 will be as well, and you may end up missing a very valid review that may well convince you NOT to buy the book.
In short: Kindle bombs are, in my opinion, very bad for readers. As someone else said, they introduce a high degree of noise into the system.
I would be equally concerned with Kindle...um..Hugs?...where Kindle users gave hundreds or thousands of 5-star reviews based on the low price of a book. The review system is meant to help the consumer decide whether or not to purchase, and the price - by Amazon's own admission until their recent backpedaling - is not part of that simply because the bare fact of the price is right there at the top of the page.
The *value* is important, but the value of a book is subjective and does, I'm afraid, require more knowledge of the contents of the book than just the price.
