I think it is key to try it out before you rate it but the sad truth is a lot of people are just damn too lazy and they will judge it by its cover.
So lets put that in reality -
- if the skin promo pic says wow when u look at it, then your going to appeal to more people and get them to take that step and download the skin.
- if the skin promo pic says "hmm naa" when u look at it, then your NOT going to appeal to people and they won't bother to download the skin and rate it down without even trying it.
I track my ratings and downloads on my site for example, I can tell you there are way more people rating things than downloading them and using them, real shame as they lose out on potentially good skins for their pleasure, (this is why we create them).
So -
I think spending a little more time on the design aspect of the skin will really help (especially as there is no coding involved skinners can afford to put a bit more effort into the design phase)
Also spend a little more time on the promo pic, get peoples attention, make them want to download it
I think a lot of skinning effort has gone in todays skins when you compare them to the winamp3 days where a lot of really good quality skins were made, it seems the buzz of skinning has declined as people are happy with using default skins in their apps etc..
Not only that but skinners seem to want the easy way out and are spending less time on designing phases and just throwing things together. - (I'm not digging at anyone with this, this is just how it seems)