I'm being sarcastic of course but I don't see the logic behind it. With the old system it was the same handful of artists that were competing for those spots. Now it's 9/10 of the same artists with the odd score 200 picture thrown in that no one thought to downvote on. Personally I always found it something to aspire towards, you know, making something that people really like and getting recognition for it, but whatever.
The silver lining is that it does give more people a (slight) chance at the spotlight, even if it's pretty much random now.