In most competitions, the difference in the top 50% vs. the bottom 50% is usually tenderness. Moist and tender will usually get you in that top 50% as long as it's not skunky...
Then there's taste. Like for me, I REALLY like a good spicy hot zip on food. However, frankly, most judges would get offended and *BAM* all those efforts would go down the drain. Trust me, it's not selling out. It's trying to please as many people as possible without offending anyone. It's playing to the middle, if you will.
The best thing we did a few years back was I invited a few friends over for a tasting party. I asked them to come over without having consumed alcohol that day. When they got there, the barbecue was ready. I'd cooked 4 butts using 2 different injections and 2 different rubs. I marked which recipe was which so we could tell. I also started with 15 or 16 base sauces. Each person (there were 12 of us) tried the barbecue by itself and we rated them. Sure enough one of them got 11 of the 12 votes. Then came the sauce with it. After voting we narrowed the sauces down to 4, but each lacked something. We began to play around, mixing and matching. Sure enough with one particular combination we ended up with all 12 of us agreeing that this combination was BY FAR the superior one. Since then that's what we go with at competitions. Also, as a result, we've been asked to cook/cater many parties with that recipe.
Side note: For fun we took bets before we tried the sauce as to which sauce would win over. And the winner was?........ Nobody. We were WAY off. The best tasting sauce, by itself, didnt work worth a flip with the barbecue.
Afterwards we pigged out, drank WAY too many beers, and had a big time!
I suggest doing something similar. You could certainly go with fewer people than I did. 3 or 4 should suffice. Dont drink. Also, choose a few friends that will be brutally honest and have different tastes than yours. For me my best friend likes a little food with his salt, where I really dont care for salt much. He also has a big sweet tooth, and again me not so much. For me it's heat and other spice; dazzle my tongue! Him, not so much. When we find something that we both agree is great, THEN we know we're on to something...