Understanding the Readers

People are going to think me very anal to do this, but after 170 stories, and being the analytical type, I have had a closer look at how mys stories have been received, with some puzzling results.
If (as I have) you judge overall reception by kudos as a proportion of total hits, the top stories are "Squaddie", "The Forensic Accountant", "Caring", "Biker Chick" and "The Leap" with "Searching" being top performer at 8.9% approval followed by "Lumberjackie" at 8.8% approval. I am not sure what to make of this. All my stories are my children, so of course I love them equally, but I know that some are better than others.
A fan recently did me the huge compliment of sending me her ratings of my first 50 stories and "Searching" ranked 49.
Then there are the stories that just don't seem to get read. I don't understand how this works but looking at total hits as a read, "Searching" rates the lowest at only 1,050 hits, followed by "Berlin" - a story that I am very proud of - at only 1,307 hits. What prompts people to read the stories?
I would hope that I have some kind of name recognition, but I also hope that people realize that when they open a story of mine it will probably be short, and hopefully a surprise - a box of Gump chocolates all tasty, I hope.
Maryanne