Oh, ho, I missed all this. So here's a very late 2c ... Artistic merit is not the only thing in life. Is that picture of tobogganing dragons great art? No, I don't think so. Is it a good magazine cover? Undoubtedly. If you are choosing an image for a specific purpose, it should be chosen on whether it fulfills that purpose. It comes to me as no surprise that such an eye-catching image should be chosen as the winning entry. It does what it's supposed to do. In contrast, the image selected by ornlu in the previous thread as "awesome", would, IMO, make a very weak magazine cover image, largely because the single human figure is so small and out of balance with the composition. I leave aside whether it is artistically better (probably not) or technically better (maybe) - as a magazine cover it wouldn't work very well.