I think you're not getting my point, the quality of a show is subjective because it depends on people's opinions. Look at matches like The Rock vs Steve Austin after Survivor Series 1998 and Rock vs Mankind RAW 1999 they lasted around 8 minutes (without entrances) and they were filled with heat and were great matches.
If I wanted to do that in the game I would've gotten a rating in the mid 80s and the feud would lose heat, now look at the matches, does it look like those storylines lost heat? If I asked you "Blackman, how could I have done better?" You would probably tell me "Well pmfg10, instead of an 8 minute match you should have them have a 20 minute match" and with that change I would get a high 90s in the match.
Now I tell you to ask yourself if the Attitude Era fans (the ones that I'm supposed to attract due to my product choice) would've thought the match was better because it lasted 20 minutes instead of 8 and I'll tell you right now, no. An attitude era fan wouldn't think it was better because it was a 20 minute match with a clean finish instead of an 8 minute match with interference.
In your opinion the shows didn't have a lot of A ratings but if they kept growing the viewership someone thought it was an A show to start and keep watching no?
If you put Austin and Rock with almost 100 pop together unless you're having an aerial type of match or whatever, they should be producing more than B or B+.
Now if you're talking about PPVs I don't have a problem with needing to have longer matches because that's what happened in reality