won’t list by rating

It could be the template tag that you are using. get_links_list, and wp_get_links will not –
http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/get_links
will allow for listing by rating, you simply have to set the parameters
<?php get_links('-1', '<li>', '</li>', '<br />', FALSE, 'rating', TRUE,
TRUE); ?>
For example would show all categories, with a line break between each item, not show image, sort by rating, show descrption and show rating.