Jesus fucking christ... now we actually need a QUALITY SEAL to indicate that a "NES rom" EVEN WORKS ON A NES? I keep wondering wether I should find the current situation amusing or depressing.

This issue really gets under you skin! I guess the fact that I've done very little NES programming (other than reverse-engineering) means I haven't been exposed to the state of the code out there. Anyway, the idea for a "quality patch" is a way to be backwards compatible with the current situation, where many things aren't clearly marked one way or the other.