it took me some time to get through your elaborate post, Nav. I say following very friendly - you have an irritating habit to stick to some less important parts of sentences, take the whole discussion to completely new place, and use so many words that true subject of a discussion gets lost somewhere in the meantime
Music - music (artists in fact) is very rarely innovative, yet many of musician copycats are very popular. public is raving for new stuff? please, if this was true, music companies and media would promote new artists performing new things, while we still see same faces or new face doing old stuff

Most people are lazy, comfy gits. perhaps you or me are not among them, but we are in minority. Majority wants life (in all his aspects) to be expectable - food that they know and like, trips to places they know and like, music...
Yet since its music your talking about, explain why artists and labels and musics born and die as fast as i can type this message?
no, because I can't see any link between unstable music market and judging minis
Please, let's leave the music aside, we are too far from the subject already.
Come on it wasnt that pitifull... you base your knowledge only on your experience?... then you need to experiment LOTS of things in first stance... this is why teres books and to save you time from experimenteing unecessary things... lets say burn a testicle to see if it hurts... maybe someone did it and some doctors confirmed it would hurt has hell
won't reply to that part - that's just an example of your habit
LOL if you are absolutist by posting some absolutist remarks on a forum then so it be
what part of my post this refers to?
I remind you it was you who started talking about absolutist replies
I commented the post not the person...
it is obvious that by commenting posts we comment person posting it.
no, i'm not touched by any part of your post
teh only thing i accuse you is poking arguments on a issue way to evident and clear.
you are trying really hard to not listen to me. you lacked clarification, despite my post showing that it's not that clear. I extended my reasoning
even furher, but you still ignore it.
somehow i find it funny so freaking funny that on your experience you noticed that and i quote
.
what's so funny? what have I noticed? sorry, but I really can't see what you mean here.
Heck i dont care if they are important on first cut, final cut or blind cut... Your experience says that the wow factor of looking at something fresh helps on first cut...
may I remind you that the whole discussion started with Trov commenting on Ana's work. Both are not really interested in first cuts, but something more

let's speak more generally though if you wish. yes, for some contestans it might be helpful to not show wip pics, due to reasons you've stated. Note 'some' and 'might'. I still believe, that you overestimate the power of wow factor.
going back to original discussion - I don't think that showing wip pics would change much. OK, I agree that it might have some influence (like: hey, I've seen it, it's good, so I'll vote for it), but not as much as you think.
There's enough time to judge minis carefully and find mistakes, no matter if judges have seen a mini earlier or not.