A match in which every game was a 10 move draw that never left the book would rate perfectly on the scale you're talking about, but it would be foolish to recommend it as a good match on those grounds.

Well, look at the overall picture.

Anand-Kramnik (2008): 4 decisive games out of 11.

Anand-Topalov (2010): 5 decisive games out of 12.

Those match performances were also ranked highly by the Guid & Bratko study (http://tinyurl.com/o6t9nm8).

Kasparov-Anand (1995): a disappointing result for Anand, 4 losses out of 18 games.

The study looked at several WCC matches over the years, and their findings indicated Anand to be, overall, a more "accurate" player than any of his predecessors.

I took it that, relative to a world championship match, Kasparov admits he didn't prepare much at all.

I don't know if he should've prepared for the possibility of a Berlin Wall defense but it seemed like you could almost feel like in each progressive game Kasparov was getting nearer to solving it over the board.

That's what you said about the first match. If you were wrong about that, couldn't you be wrong about the other?

But I think that his main weapons, openings and intimidation, didn't work as well in this match as against Anand.

It is true that later Kasparov was able to crack the Berlin defense beating Kramnik. But it was just a game and it doesn't prove much.

The overall score favors Kramnik (+5−4=40) in classical games. Also, Kasparov didn't really dominate Karpov. All their matches were close and Karpov was really unlucky in 1987. Karpov was 12 years older and it was clear that his main weakness was long matches.

It was in fact Kasparov who ducked the rematch for reasons that are well known. If you really don't know what they are, I'll be glad to tell you, but you're going to feel pretty silly."

Dortmund 2002 was the qualifier for a title match with Kramnik (strangely, I can't find a tournament page for that here). Kasparov asked to bypass that qualification step based on the strength of his recent results, but the event was played, Kasparov refused his invitation, and Leko won and played in Kramnik - Leko Classical World Championship Match (2004).

2-On 29 Nov 2016 after Taimanov passed away, Kasparov wrote on his Facebook: "I also owe Mark Evgenievich (Taimanov) my own personal happiness. At the beginning of the year 2000, he called and asked me to speak at an event at the Saint Petersburg University of the Humanities. I had no special reason to want to go there, but I could not deny Taimanov! It was there that I met a student named Dasha Tarasova, who later became my wife."

3-On April 4th 2005, the match arbitrator Eric Schiller wrote on chessgames.com: "Anyone who saw Kasparov just before the game knows that he was clearly greatly distracted by a non-chess matter. It was not appropriate for me, as arbiter, to ask why, so I didn't. He left quickly after the game. In many matches, things going on off the board affected some games, not just in Iceland 72. Perhaps Kasparov will write of such things in a future book, covering all of his matches."

4-Also I recall that Judit Polgar had said something to the same effect of Mr. Schiller but I don't remember the source now.

Conclusion:
By putting all above together we can understand with a high percentage of assurance that what was the issue with Kasparov at this match, or at least one of his main issues.

Thanks Beatgiant....I was aware of Kasparov avoiding the qualification process due to hia ego, but never thought all these years that he was ducking Kramnik.

I thought that he would have won the rematch and am sad that it never happened.