Redneck, Brewer, it's very subjective... You'll notice that most of the time they agreed on the best one on the table that day. They also agreed on the worst. The remainder are lost in subjective-land. Two people like salty, but two dont. Two like sweet; another two or three dont. Same for spice/heat. They did prove that taste and tenderness have little to do with one another, even showed it in the picture with one apparently good tasting rib but it got slammed in tenderness scores. Otherwise, yes, there were some really sad comments, particularly those about appearance. I'll bet that most of those silly comments came from fairly seasoned judges. I'm of the opinion that people become conditioned to expect certain things, like little round balls we call chicken, and anything else gets slammed wrongly.
However, to taste, if you've got a fairly unique flavor coming through on your Q, then yes it's a crap shoot as to who you get at your table. The better more consistent competitors know this and their Q isn't very salty, isn't too sweet, has a touch of spice so that it's not bland but wouldn't be considered very spicy. They play to the center and try to not alienate any judges.
