In reply to Matt.

I am glad I am not alone to see that spamming download count and reviews is a big problem in the repository, and I too would like to see plugins and themes getting banned. Reviews and download count/active installs are very important when users pick their plugins, and it is also used to sort the search results I believe.
There should be a Wall of Shame to show people that wordpress.org will not tolerate it.

In my opinion, the plugin "WPSSO" games the download count, just look at the irregularities, and look at the author's other plugins. "Custom Sidebars", a widely used plugin that had mediocre reviews suddenly got a 100% increase, all 5 star reviews in less than 2 weeks. Fishy right? And the list goes on.
Again, this is my opinion, nothing has been proved.

I have seen several websites where you can buy reviews, downloads for your plugins on wordpress.org, just like you can do with facebook likes, youtube views etc. It has to stop to maintain the credibility of the repository.