No, not a low opinion of any of my children - this is exactly what people I know do. They just book somewhere for the whole class because it's easier, so the child gets more presents (unbelievable but yes, I've had both kids and mums say this to me!), because the hall or whatever holds so many so they 'might as well' invite some more, or because they don't want to offend other children or their mums. Or school politics gets involved - we want to invite A and B but that means we have to have C because A, B and C always do things together.
My own children only ever invited people they really wanted to invite, real friends, and we had some smashing parties. They never invited people they didn't really get on with, didn't know very well or were only inviting because the other child had invited them to a party a few weeks earlier. All of which things happen regularly it seems.
Sorry if I seem so cynical, but my children have been invited to literally hundreds of parties between them and we've seen it all!
To be honest, my 3 got fed up of a lot of parties anyway - to be invited to crowded parties in the same old places (in our town usually a choice of about 4 same-old venues), lost its appeal fairly soon and my children soon got more discerning. They soon stopped wanting to go to every party to which they were invited, and just wanted to go their best friends' parties.
I still maintain that an invitation given to only 6-12 children, from someone who really wants YOU there, is much more worthwhile than one casually handed out to 30 children by a child who normally wouldn't give you the time of day.
But like I said earlier, all that is long behind us, and I think we're all glad!