Boba, I think you have just hit the nail on the head as to why many so UK soul sellers - including many on this site - are so often bemoaning the lack of sales in recent times.
It's quite noticeable how many soul collectors from outside the UK have mentioned to me that they simply won't buy soul records from UK sources any longer, period. And the most often cited reason is the dreaded UK "EX(cellent)" grading, usually based on the Record Collector (UK) system .
As you've just mentioned, in the minds of many UK sellers, the absolute lowest grading is a VG !!!! And that more often than not looks like it has been run over by a truck !!! One might ask whatever happened to the GOOD/FAIR/POOR gradings !!!
That, coupled with the fact that so many UK soul sellers appear to be to be stuck in a mind-set regarding record values .... a mind-set that says that the value of a soul record will always be what it was at its highest ever point , without regard to current demand or popularity or quantity.
These days, unless a record is a one off, or there appear to be only a handful in existence, one is far better off to be patient and wait for a copy to turn up on (US) ebay (even taking into account all of ebay's many faults and pitfalls) and bid on the open world market where the US Dollar is far weaker than the UK pound, but where the grading - generally speaking - tends to be far more conservative and fairer and there is far less occurrence of other nasty factors such as cue burn or worn out record grooves that you often come across with records that have spent 30 or 40 years doing the rounds of UK northern soul collectors and dealers.