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I've been lurking, so I decided to go ahead and take the plunge and register. I'm applying to a range of programs as someone with a BA from an unprestigious state school. I applied to several PhD programs in the PGR report, ranging from T15 programs to programs in the 30-50 range, and am also applying to some terminal MA programs in anticipation of being shut-out entirely from PhDs. I'm eager to see how things go, and am happy to be about done with filling out (and paying for) applications like the rest of you.

Unfortunately, although I can sympathize with your sentiments, this is a quixotic way to look at the GRE. The fact is, graduate school in philosophy is a seller's market. To get accepted, you need to try to put together a dossier with as few flaws as possible. The set of possible flaws includes mediocre or poor GRE scores relative to your competition. Does that make it right? No, not at all. But that's the way it is, and it's been that way for years. It's extremely competitive, and yes, you're right to think that even perfect GREs doesn't guarantee acceptance. You do likely need to hit a certain number (philstudent1991 was probably right to think it's something close to 165 in V, but perhaps it's as low as 162 or 163, which still puts you in the 90th+ percentile) to have a good shot at most PGR-ranked schools (whether an MA or a PhD program), though. Philosophy students tend to well on the GRE, and so to just end up with a verbal score in the upper 150s isn't really acceptable, especially if you're not coming from a pretty well-regarded undergrad. If you went to Harvard and did well, you might get away with it, but it'd be better to not have to take that risk given how competitive graduate admissions are in philosophy.