Wow, I'm dead clever today!
I'm not really with Dave on Baco... I tend to find I'm not disappointed because I don't get over excited about things beforehand. Balder I guess was a bit of a disappointment, but not too.
I was expecting some kind of life changing experience from it, a new yard-stick to measure coasters by. Turns out, it was just pretty good. See... It's a good ride, and not reaching the lofty heights we're expecting doesn't make it any worse a coaster for it. I could still ride it and still really enjoy it.
I always work on everything based on my own personal experience, and never take into account what others say. So Baco wasn't disappointing, it was worse than I thought it might be, but it pretty much did exactly what I was expecting from watching POVs. Khan though I didn't have a point of experience to really make any kind of pre-conception of what the ride would be like - so it blew me away. I know that Ian and Marc weren't so keen, but both had done Kumba which they both rated higher.
I guess it's a mix of things here. Your own personal coaster experience gives you the ability to (most of the time) project a potential ride. I find that where I have an experience to base thnigs on, I'm usually within a certain range of what I expected with what I get. So it may be a little better (El Toro) or a little worse (Baco). It doesn't mean I prejudge and try to fit my experience in though. Boulder Dash completely threw me. I knew exactly what to expect but it just did it so much better than I could possibly imagine. Phoenix couldn't have been any more mediocre if it tried (and I was expecting at least a "good" ride).
Erm, I don't know if this has gone way off topic, just trying to explain the way my mind works in these situations and why I don't get "disappointed" (not even by Phoenix, it just was what it was).