I agree. There are pretty good technical specialists coming out of Russia, China and India. I have not found a single university from ether country.

"Top 100 universities at doing what?"

The list is endless, visit their websites, look up all the teachers and programs they have going. Now research those and you will see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Top university implies that these schools have a large hub of academic progress, it might not be in a tangible form but the stuff they do at those universities does make a difference.

These schools get a lot of bad press because the big players of the world seem to come from them, but it does not diminish the contribution these higher education universities have added to the global community.

There is another link that provides slightly more info than just the rank http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/Rankings2009-Top200.ht...

Like peer review score, employer score etc. But even then, I think this is more like a voting scheme to obtain scores rather than detailed assessment of each department/ research / paper published / nobel laureates produced/ entrepreneurs produced / innovation quotient etc.

I agree with you if you use lists such as this one to pick the University in which you go to study or work. But I would think that as a Country, or a State they might serve as a (very) high-level indicator of how you are doing in education.

Certainly not at brand recognition. Everyone's heard of Harvard, Yale and Cambridge, no-one's heard of UCL who didn't go there (and I say this as an alum).