This is my biggest complaint about OpenRouter and I'm a fan. Might be pretty tough at scale?

They have an "exacto" category with providers they supposedly verified

That’s only for tool use.

That's just one part of it. According to https://openrouter.ai/docs/guides/routing/model-variants/exa...

  We use three classes of signals:
   * Tool-calling success and reliability from real traffic
   * Provider performance metrics such as throughput and latency
   * Benchmark and evaluation data as it becomes available

Would that align with their VC-backed incentives?

If your users can't trust your product then I'd say that'd be a pretty strong incentive?