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This is part of the inconsistency in judging that should be addressed.
Baby, I'm not sure that any sanctioning body can address this. The
reason is, IMHO, the single most SUBJECTIVE thing in cooking, whether competitions, at home, or in a restaurant, of any food type, is the appearance and what is and isn't appetizing to the individual. You cannot tell someone what is appetizing to them. What may be appetizing to you, I may find disgusting, and visa versa. It just IS.
I'm not saying we all disagree all the time. For the most part, we all agree down the line. The problem is when people want to draw outside of the lines. A few judges will penalize someone for drawing outside the lines; the better judge looks at it much simpler, and asks him/herself, do I want to eat that? Is it begging to be snarfed? There are degrees of yes and degrees of no (hence a score), but basically that's it.
I was at a GBA table judging a few weeks back and of the 5 judges 3 of us were almost gagging at how much like a turd one particular MM looked like, and the other 2 didnt see it. Honestly, it didnt look like BBQ. I wasnt watching, but a bystander came up later and was asking "what was wrong, most of you jumped back". Seriously, it was that vivid. Who was right; who was wrong? I would debate with you that nobody was wrong. It was what it was. 2 looked at it and it apparently said "eat me" to them, and 3 of us looked at it and wondered if we should bother putting any on our plate...
Only if we re-classify appearance and call it "neatness" or something. Yes, you can neatly arrange christmas balls and dog turds and money muscles and tiny balls of chicken, but you cant necessarily make all of them appetizing to everyone....
Funny thing, there have been a few (very few mind you) that werent as neat in appearance as many but the meat screamed EAT ME, NOW, RIGHT NOW, DO NOT WAIT, DO NOT HESITATE. And, to everyone, that factor is different. We're human <last I checked>.