Their failings were part of the larger inability of Wall Street to do securitization right, and their employees didn't get paid nearly as much as the investment-bank guys engineering the dodgy investment products they rated. That's why the rating agencies aren't in the top 10. But the willingness of Moody's, S&P and Fitch to grant top ratings to untested new securities like collateralized debt obligations made possible a lot of staggeringly dumb deals that otherwise would never have seen the light of day.