The way iTunes ranks podcasts causes stagnant content

Question

Hi there,
I'm a podcaster who has been working on a weekly show since September and I'm confused about how iTunes ranks them. Everything I have read so far has indicated that the majority of the ranking is based purely on number of new subscribers.
There are two things that are very frustrating about this.
Firstly, people will most likely herd and click on the top podcasts to begin with, so it becomes a self-fulfulling prophecy to an extent. The "old guard" of podcasters who started years ago sat upon their thrones in the early days of podcasting and are still there, utterly unmoveable.
I could even live with the above if it wasn't for my second point, and that is that podcasts are not penalised for not being active or current. So for the category I am trying to get more exposure in, while I am languising 27 lines down, one of the podcasts at the very top of the page has not had an update since July 2008, one since November 2009, one since August 2010, one since August 2009, one since March 2011, and so on.
I'm not doing a "this isn't fair" rant, it's more "surely this isn't sensible". I would have thought that Apple would WANT new, innovative, current, ACTIVE podcasts to be getting the attention. The only reason these dead (and in some cases, not very good anyway) podcasts are doing better than us is because they're already at the top (see first point). In the five months I've been doing this, the top 20 podcasts for my sector have not changed once. Surely that kind of stagnation is not good for either new podcasters or people who like podcasts, and like them to reflect the decade they're listening in?
If I'm misunderstanding something, is there anyone who can explain for me? Or I suppose preferably, is there anyone from Apple who might be able to help with making the ranking system a little less punishing for the little (regular, active, passionate) shows like ours?
Many thanks
Jonny

Answer 1

Yeah I've heard that too, but then we have two genuine user reviews (we don't know these people, honest!) who have given 5 stars each, and many of the shows above ours either have one or zero reviews.
I didn't realise the Apple Support Communities had nothing to do with Apple. From everything I've read, it seems like they are completely unwilling to enter discussions on the subject, which is frustrating and a little weird to be honest.