Matt: This is a lie. I have seen you talk about quality at SMX and it is laughable. These quality guidelines you speak of might pertain to others, but they do not pertain to Google's own content.
1. When I search for a restaurant, 99% of the time Google places shows up before Yelp. So you are telling me that Google places always has better content than Yelp? Look at these reviews for Gary Danko - http://maps.google.com/maps/place?num=100&hl=en&biw=...
"love it" and "our favorite restaurant" Does Google Places have much better quality content 99% of the time?
2. Look at http://www.seobook.com/images/google-google-google-google-go.... A. Look at all of Google's sites in the results. B. What are those Youtube videos doing in these results? Every other result in this set has the words hollywood and cauldron right together(except the leaky-cauldron domain result), but since Youtube is a Google property it shows up. It's funny. Do this search on your own and you will see that the top 40 results have "Hollywood Cauldron" in its title, but the ones in Youtube do not.
So your results are all about quality unless it comes down to your own content. Then, it doesn't matter.
By the way, I can't wait for Google Plus to start hogging space in your results too. We all know how important "social" is to you guys. Even more important than "local." So we shall assume the results will be even more crowded google content. If we are lucky, maybe Robert Scoble will mention the words hollywood and cauldron in one of his wordy posts and we will see at the top of the results! And by the way, no one buys that don't be evil thing any more... long gone.