Some of these developers work really hard to make game that reach about 9.0 and their games don't reach the "Popular Games" section for 1 second
The Popular Games list is fixed. The games on that list don't get there by being popular, they're put there purposely by admins so they get more popular. So unless the game was created by an admin or someone sponsoring AG somehow, chances are you won't see it on the Popular Games list.
The only thing about that list that's misleading is the name. If it were called "Featured Games" or "Developer's Picks" it probably wouldn't throw off so many people into thinking that any game could make it onto the list.
Anyway, no, while AG2 will most likely never have any kind of "hall of fame" feature, you can still access games in order of rating.