Ok, follow me on this. For those who don't know Don Quixote was a fictional story of a man who fought windmills thinking them as soldiers. So you may ask how does this relate to classic gaming?
Simple, once in awhile you might come across a super gigantic score, and wonder how, and why did this person put a score so far beyond anyone else?
The answer might be the Don Quixote effect.
See that person may not be playing to present day competition. That person may have imagined a future challenger to come along. And by so doing so has created a competition that may not actually exist. So in a sense this person is actually fighting windmills in a figurative sense like Don Quixote.
I believe this effect can create some crazy scores because the fictional competition is almost god like in that no score is high enough. All you can do is make this possible person struggle for the score. For in the struggle comes appreciation.