Dave&Wave, a good score is a score that improves your rank, imho. So keep it up!
Card Man: You can mash on a song and FC it, so it has nothing to do with how many misses you get. In fact, I can mash some up-down trills and get a clean FC - no boos. I'm not proud of it, but I mash in some places on some songs...but I try my best to avoid it.
The main problems with mashing are that you can't PA with it, and it doesn't develop your skill at all. How can you train your fingers to do the technique properly if you're mashing all the time? Then, your skill stays the same at certain types of motions while the rest of your skills are improving. I also suspect that your eyes aren't reading the arrows as accurately, then, either. It's odd though, that you can get better at mashing. I know there are parts of songs I couldn't even mash before that now I can reasonably mash, but usually it's because I am now able to read those sections accurately and my technique is just about caught up enough to hit them poorly (e.g., today I dropped my rank on Silence by 3000. I mashed some parts still because I was scrambling and others because I don't yet have the stamina to hold up on that song the whole way. Oh, also I hate that song. lol) Oh, and nice work on your ranks, Card Man. You'd getting frightningly close to mine.
BTW - Got my first tier point today! FCed TGWP p1. I don't remember if I mashed some parts or not...lol, probably. Also, under 1100 av rank.
So close to that lifetime achievement token...