What concrete benefits does a project get from having lots of stars? I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just wondering what the stakes are, since I don't have a lot of open source background myself.

I'm not sure if there is a fixed universal set of concrete benefits. It probably varies from project to project and the people involved.

If it’s such a big deal then why is GitHub not intervening to help a “super-elite” tier of project?

Devs retconned the concept of a like onto a star. That doesn’t mean they are the same thing.

> If it’s such a big deal then why is GitHub not intervening to help a “super-elite” tier of project?

That's why this is a #1 post.

> Devs retconned the concept of a like onto a star. That doesn’t mean they are the same thing.

Yes, the semantics are ill-defined.