As a man who is
, waiting until I was 29 to get married....I can tell you that long term compatibility comes into play much more than you'd think when it comes time to wife it up legit.
I would never date exclusively for years because the grass was always greener.
When that scene got tired and I wanted to settle it down, it was WAY more about how much of the 'real me' she could put up with, and how much of the 'real her' I could.
You starting looking at other things way more closely, such as 'would you imagine that she'd be a good mom?' and 'do we want the same things out of life?' and 'can we have an argument and be OK after?'
Now, my wife is still a solid 7/8 (and 8 before she had my two kids...
) but it wasn't the deciding factor it might have been when I was 25.