Judging

I'm late to this - been on holiday. The various opinions make interesting reading but I would side with those who think that a limited pool of judges would eventually result in images that were aimed to please those particular people. But I can also sympathise with those who fear the act of judging - whether from (perhaps) the difficulty of expressing their views through to thoughts of 'who am I to criticize my peers?' Personally, I have learned a great deal about a 'good' photograph from having to justify my choices of winners and runners up so I think the act of judging can benefit the judge but we are not all as confident (or thick skinned!) so including a safety net for people who would rather not submit detailed critiques can only be a good thing.
We like what we see - 1st place!! and that should suffice. In such cases the mods can take it from there. Having had the good fortune to win now and then I have been faced with the problem of a topic for the succeeding week/month. It is very very difficult to come up with something suitable so, once more, a would be entrant is put off from even taking part because of the responsibility. Anything that will remove these difficulties has got to be for the better.
In short, if someone has won it would be nice if they could just say (without detriment) "Thank you! And could the mods please set the next one?" As shown above, we all like detailed critiques but we must accept that someone who can submit a winning image isn't necessarily going to be happy with the current consequences - for a variety of reasons and this ought to be acknowledged.