That's not how I use the results page, though. I open the top x number of results in separate tabs, and then check those pages. I only go back to the tab with the results page after I've checked them all, so that might be a while, even if they all suck.

So if they look at my behaviour the way you say, then the feedback they'd get from me would be that the top x-1 results are always bad, while the xth result is always good. That sounds like a poor algorithm for them, but it might explain why my Google results always suck.