^ I agree! The rubric is great! I've judged awards before, and it's like, okay... pick your favorite! So subjective! It's always hard when there's one story that's probably the best-written, but another story that you ENJOYED more, and yet another one that fits the actual category best, and so on. This made it so much more objective because you scored the stories all the same way, according to the same criteria, and whichever got the highest score, that was your winner.
So from the judging aspect, it was easier to know if you were doing it the right way, and from the nominee aspect, it's nice to get that feedback and know what the judge liked about your story and what the judge thought you could improve. Plus, having a rubric like that kind of prevents anyone from being able to claim that the awards were biased or rigged - they're about as objective as you can get with a judging system!