Obvious to everyone, yes. But usually with different conclusions.
Two cents: The more seriously I take a competition, the less comfortable I am when competitors discuss the entries in public. And (despite how quiet this year has been), Spring Thing is the IF community’s second-most important competition. The potential for bad blood to erupt seems really high, and that seems like a bad thing.
On the subject of there being more discussion about the games, I’ve noticed that several people have written reviews of the Spring Thing entries, but no one seems to have posted those reviews here or even linked to them. Some I only found via Google searches, others when I thought to check the IFWiki page, but here - the single biggest IF forum on the internet - there are no reviews at all or even any indication of where those reviews might be found. So discussion is being had, but it’s being had all over the place and as such it’s hard to keep track of it all.
Maybe for the Spring Thing 2015, one of the mods could pin a thread to the forum with links to all reviews and / or discussions going on, or even get permission from the review-writers to post their reviews on the forum, in the hope of generating a bit of discussion.
Great idea! Out of (vested) interest, could you link any you’ve found that aren’t on IFWiki?