ES stuff should be banned from rankings on the premise that it's stuff that the regular overclocker/general user cannot get their hands on. Yes it's good for company PR (I know this), but getting world records on hardware that isn't even retail means what exactly? Nothing!
I agree with you Michael in some respects, but as long as HWBot is funded and sponsored by the top companies, it isn't going to happen. It's the vacuum you get sucked into when you take on sponsors, take on advertisers, take on support etc. The moment you defy the sponsor, you lose their support and some just aren't willing to do that - That goes throughout the industry itself including other business models.
That being said, I don't think that's HWBots fault at the end of the day, but there certainly needs to be a distinguishing factor between those using ES samples/cherry picked samples provided by companies for PR and the regular retail hardware; no-one can fairly compete unless you have a huge bank account to compensate it.
Also sandbagging is dirty as they come; I think you should always submit the best score you have to keep things competitive. Nothing worse than breaking a record to find out 10 minutes later you have been sandbagged from 3 months ago...(have seen other people go through that and it's near heart breaking for them)
So what's HWBot going to do here Michael, or what do you expect them to do? They won't piss off sponsors and they certainly won't change things that could "hurt" the top ranked guys...Why would they?