ITunes Rating Stars Not Solid.

Question

I've noticed from time-to-time that my rating stars seem to be hollow and no longer solid. What does this happen?

Answer 1

User5910 I will try to answer all of your questions throughout so please read through. 
You misread that example.  The example of "Any" doesn't reflect any track, movie, podcast etc that is a "Nested formula" in a Smart Playlist.  You have the ability to tell the play list that "any" or "all" of the criteria must be met using this.  The use of this (and the subsequent Album Art ratings which are indented) reflect what you should see.
Before pressing the "Plus" button to add a new rule press the Alt/Option key.  This changes the "+" to ellipses "..." and by selecting this you enter into the "Nested Formula" option where a string of rules can be created which act differently.
In the example above I told the Smart Playlist to look for any "true" instance for any "Album Rating" that IS NOT * - 5*.  It sounds reverse logic but I was telling the playlist I want to return values for any album that is rated. 
In another way to read it; "Return any item that does not have a 1 * rating, 2 * rating, etc."  Meaning that only 0 * ratings would be returned.  The nested formula had to be used stating "Any" vs. "All" because no track will have all 5 ratings (meaning *, **, ***, ****, *****) at one time.  So I am saying that if any of the conditions are met then it is a true statement.  No one track would have all of the conditions met.  The use and understanding of any vs. all is key in this type of filtering.  An example is an track can be "any" one of the genres blues, rock, metal, classical but it wouldn't be labeled as "all" of them.  Understand?  (of course someone could try and build a stupid genre like blues/rock/metal/... but that isn't the point of a single field for that track.)
As for the album rating when you do one track's rating.  That is true that the ratings appear.  ...but it doesn't impact my Smart Playlists unless I specifically rate the whole album.  ...I am unsure why it is for you?  I just tested an album with no ratings.  I added a rating and did a very simple playlist looking for that any track by that artist with greater than 1*.  ...I am a little cloudy on why that is happening to you.  I CAN confirm that if I explicitly rate an album (even without any specific tracks rated) the whole album appears in my playlist. 
It appears iTunes handles an explicit "Album Rating" differently than the implied rating that occurs when a single track is rated.   Try unranking your individual tracks and then also undoing any "album rating."  ...this is a test unlikely to resolve it.
...but the real solution for you seems to be creating a playlist the features "Plays" (greater than or less 0) or even a playlist that focuses on "Skips".  There are many options to do this without messing with ratings.  It appears you are trying to use ratings in a way that it isn't designed for to some degree.  I used to use them similarly but now I expanded the categories I use in Smart Playlist creation.  It has really helped. 
In your workflow your "Play" would be 0, but your "Skip" should register as 1.  Skip is a key metric you can filter by.
I admit I didn't understand the portion of when, why, and how you determine which podcast to remove.  You rate items that you want to remove?  Sorry on that last part I am confused.