I think that the star ranking system serves a useful purpose, i.e. the more stars that you have generally for the most part the more knowledgable that poster is about the 8052 and the applications of the 8052. Otherwise how would someone know that a particular response is a valid one?

With some tweeking of the star system I would agree. The karma score does, in my opinion, not reflect knowledge of the '51. In contrast the Karma score, to a large extent, reflect how popular an answer is, not how good it is. Publish a chunk of code and see your score go up. Disagree with a widely held opinion and see it go down.
The old quote "I will not defend your opinion, but I will defend your right to have it" definitely does not apply to the karma system.

Erik