Here's my solution. It is the best solution for anyone who wants to do it right.
We have a central server. It is located at //Server/book1 ...that's the network drive. Below that, I have a /profiles/Media Center/*user* folder and the media is /music, /video, /podcasts, /pictures.
Now, go to the custom tags section and create new tags called your name + rating, so: Ben's Rating. Then set it to an Integer with values of 1;2;3;4;5. Set this to save to the tags of the files. Add one for each user you have. Then, edit the Rating tag and UNCHECK save ratings to tags. Otherwise, user one will rate a song and the rating will replace the other ratings for everyone else.
The reason you want [Ben's Rating] is because then you create a playlist called Rating: Incorrect. Here, I can tell you the string which I've already made...when I get home...but it shows all songs where the Rating does not equal [Ben's Rating]. Then, you can VERY quickly update [Ben's Rating] by simply showing the column and then click the first song under [Ben's Rating], F2, then type the rating arrow down, etc. This will write your ratings to the songs (thereby saving them) and other users will be able to add this column to their view.
One last suggestion: make sure to change Display to B (for Ben's Rating). That way, it won't show B... or simply ... or worse yet, expand to fill Ben's Rating. I put A and B right next to Rating so I can see my stored rating and another user's rating. You can still use the stars--those won't transfer. But the Ben's Rating column lets you save them to the files, lets other users see them, and since you don't merely uncheck store ratings in tags, you aren't relying on MC's database. If that got corrupted you could lose all your ratings.
I'm still wondering about a play count transfer but that isn't nearly as important. Finally, the neat thing about this is that another user can rate your songs for you by changing Ben's Rating. BUT, the Rating: Incorect playlist will show ALL songs where either your star rating or Ben's Rating was changed, so you have a backup to stop others from making stupid ratings. You can simply reverse the process: Don't update the Ben's Rating column with the stars rating--update Ben's Rating with your star rating (which may be NULL at the moment).
Lastly, I exported the MC registry settings to a .reg file. Then, all I have to do is import the reg file to the registry on other computers and certain settings like encoder, filename scheme, etc are imported so you don't have to manually set all those settings on every computer.
