Exceptional

So about a year ago I became familiar with surveys and ratings that gave me the option of giving "exceptional" as the highest rating.
Exceptional? Isn't that WORSE than "fair" or "poor?" Like: "hey, this looks awesome EXCEPT you really messed up the whole story"
That makes sense. It was great--excepting an attribute--which made it exceptional.
I have always thought this term was NOT a compliment.
Then today I looked long and hard at the word, decided to read a definition, then firmly told myself: "okay, this word does not mean that." And so I had to change because I was wrong.