The whole purpose of polling and compiling statistics is to give support to some drawn up conclusion... to make certain ideas more palatable. Think about it... why would you trust a stranger's experience and advice over your own? If someone tells you a particular dish takes great, would you take their word for it and leave it at that? No. You'd rather try it for yourself.
No, I don't think so. Who wants to try driving 20+ different car models for five years each to find out which ones are more reliable? Plus then you'd have to worry if the particular cars that you just spent a lifetime or two driving were representative of fleet-wide build quality or just outliers on the spectrum.