I agree with you that it is good for us, young developers to learn marketing, and it is what it is.
However, I'm not sure the rate4rate system is actually a marketing strategy that we will benefit from in our future. (But what do I know? Maybe... I actually don't know what I'm talking about, I'm not an expert)
For anyone reading this, I don't mean to send a bitter/judgmental message. I'm genuinely questioning and I'm curious if actually the people who do the rate4rate maybe agree with this. And they do it against their will.
In general it felt to me that the week was a bit too much of ("look at me!" , "look at my game") than focusing on other people's games.
My guess is we don't really want that but we do it anyway because we're scared that the people who do it will overshadow our games.
In my case, I did it, because I thought that I had no choice, because of that. And I didn't really like focusing so much on promoting my game than actually enjoying all of your games.
Because there are actually some gems here and there in you have done guys :)