The ALT tags as currently presented are a detriment to site value altogether, yet clever use can add value when kept within the obvious rules for relevance and balance......and may be even used as a means to add more "text" to pages lean of Content: so they do, in fact have a significant contributable value if used optimally (and not "exclusively" for images - LOL).

The blatant duplication of tag to tag, and all being over-burdened with "Wildcard" attributes ('irrelevant'* Key Words and phrases) truly is a "Black Hat" trigger that is de-valueing whatever temporary positioning that was previously allowed to exist. It is the first thing I saw, and the most mentionable contributor to the "issue" being mish-moshed in this thread even now....


* "irrelevant": unsupported; not anchored by page content or unique combination of tags, text, links, and titles.