@cfrank Hey thanks so much for responding! I read some of the other posts on this forum and y'all seem so advanced here, it made me kinda nervous lol. Anyway, I actually thought about the same problem you mentioned with the averaging giving lesser known candidates an edge, following my posting of it. After doing some reading, I found a similar version of range voting proposed here: (https://rangevoting.org/SmithWM.html), which is basically just score voting. However, it also incorporates the averaging I mentioned by establishing a quota system for the minimum amount of ballots that must be cast involving each candidate before they would be eligible to win via their total score.
I figured as much in regards to reversing the numerical order from rating to ranking. My rationale for doing so was just to eliminated the strategic element of voters not using the entire range of scoring that a traditional scoring method provides. Although I suppose the same rule could be applied to the scoring method provided the number of ratings reflected the number of candidates rather than being a set (0-5), (0-9), or (0-99), scale. This seems like it would be a good way to circumvent min-maxing candidates without having to incorporate a top two runoff as in STAR, or having to use binary ratings as in Approval. I figured it probably hasn’t been popularized for a reason though, so thank you for mentioning borda counts so I can do some further research into it 🙂