well first off, most of the 'hacks' view anything other than mindless praise a personal attack.... to the point where they get the mods involved and what they don't like (normally constructive critique) removed.

add in the Cliqhe element, (you tell them their pic is nice (however bad it is) they tell you yours is nice and round and round we go....), reliance on the Tutorial of the week (use a tutorlal yes. once. then go beyond it!! learn!)  and anyone raising the points you have being told varying versions of 'How dare you judge what art is!' we have the situation we have now where we have a few hundred 'artists' not actually growing or improving but just making cookie cutter images they think are the best in the world which are actually unfinished, uninspired flat images with little merit to them.