I do agree with you Fernman and your entry 'it's good to be able to see a number of brands and models in one place' is why I tend to go to its first, I use it as a baseline to start to understand the product I'm looking for. I'm using it at the moment to gather knowledge about sunhats, for me, it can sometimes be a useful starting guide. Is there a similar UK site that categorises products in the same or a similar way?
The difficulty I have with review sites generally is that most of them only seem to cover the big companies, Rab, Berghaus, North Face and so on, they rarely 'review' say Alpkit products and other, what I assume for them is 'lower value' or 'lower status' products. For example, I think my Alpkit synthetic jacket is marvelous, but I have never read that anywhere else, in fact, I have never seen it reviewed in the first place!
For me tent reviews are a good example, the review vsites just seem to focus on specific makes and models!