Is that one of the major issues with SMR is that in large parts they are "beholden" to people who advertise with them; instead of tracking actual sales.
if they ever really used VCP (or Card Pricer) properly and did a little more work on pricing; you would probably find these things
1) Cards only priced in conditions they exist. This might have been fixed in recent years; however; this used to be a real problem with the SMR.
2) Prices lowered on those post-war sets.
3) Meanwhile; priced raised on legit difficult pre-war (and other tough modern sets) sets.
4) And on a customer service complaint; I'm one of those rare people who PAY for a subscription to SMR and I've done that a couple of times and I have NEVER gotten a renewal notice. I don't know about you; but throwing away the chance for money by sending a simple renewal notices if just not good common sense.
4A) Because of issue #4 (and I stress this is personal); AND the membership fee to PSA -- why would I ever want to send cards into PSA. I can't have faith in their customer service because they don't know how to run a magazine AND why should I pay $99 for the priveledge of sending cards into PSA. Personally; I would much prefer a price fixe of sub costing X and cards being sent in costing Y (with whatever special deals do come up). I don't want to be a member of a "club"; I just want cards graded!
Regards
Rich