The way to solve it is to manually do a benchmark when a RALPH or Rosetta WU is not in the cache if at all possible

I think the point is that this issue has been beaten to death on all of the project and team forums. The Rosetta people have already said that they are not going to switch to a canonical validation system because it cuts down on the amount of processing that can be done. It is also very clear that they do not plan on modifying the BOINC software beyond the baseline, unless there is a science based reason to do so. So the whole issue is moot for the rosetta/ralph project and it is therefore a BOINC issue.

In any case this project does not seem to be about credits. Did I miss something? I can't count the number of times I have seen that said on the boards here. The fact is that no matter how many credits are awarded, you can't even use them to get a cup of coffee. So they are totally meaningless in a "not for profit" project environment. Now if people were being paid by how many credits they got I could understand the rabid obsession with them. But that is not the case. This is about curing sickness and saving peoples lives, not useless credits.

Even if you concede that credits are important to some people for whatever reason, it is a game, not a life and death problem. You would think people would want the application to run right first and worry about the credits later. People are constantly threatening to leave the project or suspend the project unless they get the 20 credits they lost from a failed WU. Well, lets forget the credit system for a while and fix the failed WU problems that are aggravating people and slowing down the science. You know, like Ralph is trying to do. As you point out there are ways to cheat the credit system, so why make such a big deal out of them. At best they are just for bragging rights.