We've considered that. This site was created when Worth1000 was sold to Design Crowd, and some of the members did not like the direction DC was taking with porting over Worth. The problem with having physical prizes is some people start cheating for them. In a contest where the winner is selected by members of the site rating all the entries on a scale of 1-10 this usually takes the form of somebody creating duplicate accounts to either vote up their own entry, or vote down everybody elses'. Worth1000 had a corporate section where people competed for money, and problems were rampant in that section, but fairly minimal in the rest of the site where people were only competing for pictures of trophies and credits to enter contests (and buy bling). Running an occasional contest with a prize probably wouldn't generate that problem, running regular ones would, and it creates ill will among your members when it happens.

If it creates cross-traffic with artist supply sites it could increase membership and make it worth the hassle, since all our staff are volunteers the increased workload policing contests with physical prizes would have to be taken into consideration. Nobody likes playing cop for free.