I think the "melted brains" part explains the judges choices.

Agree 100% - fair enough, most mtb riders are not professional designers, but it seems like the most of the best executed designs did not even make the final selection.

The only thing that is "insane" are the judges final selections. They are turbo-lame designs.

Redraw = Plagiarism = Lame!

Wrong! Most of the best designs were not even in the final selection (and will not get printed at all.)

You have got to be kidding me - the general level was far below crap. There were maybe 10 well executed designs out of the thousands of entries. Yup, this is sour grapes. But by looking at the "top" finalists it seems that the winning criterial were not based on good design, but catering to the poor taste of the judges. Maybe it would have been better to take another day to decide rather than making a blurry-eyed judgement at 2am...

For the judges: if it makes it any easier to decide the winners, you have to consider that while some designs may be cool graphics, they may not necessarily make a good t-shirt print. Simple, bold designs have better impact at any distance. Also limitations of the screen-printing process make photo-realistic or gradient images difficult to print. Solid line art with flat areas of colour work best.