My 2 cents...
The problem is that most of the candidates were distribuited by AtariAge wich is huge compared to other small producers.
Most of these games (or packages) had their quality well known among the collectors around the world, so whats the chance that a small company to compete in equality of conditions? Most of the people complaining about the result doesn't even known that this game or the game developer existed before the prize, so how could anyone to judge imparcially all the candidates?
Since most of this games came from this forum and most of the votes too, how can we "equalize" the situation? There's people making good games and boxes with small distribution around the world, so how could we be fair with everyone?
Unfortunatelly there's no easy soluction or even right or wrong answer to this question...
Many members have already assumed that the game did not deserve to win, even without having had the chance to know it, regardless of the discrepancy in the votes...