About these questions:
A competition or no competition?
A long or a short time to prepare this competion?
A few good prizes or many small ones?
For all these questions, we can consider the "Pros and cons", ...
It's true that the concept of the competition is restricting the number of the "free" projects while the competition is running. On the other hand, I hope that we will have many good projects available for all the users of this site as soon as the contest will be achieved. The competition is also a way to increase the motivation.
If we postpone the submission date, we will not have the projects for the Nuremberg show (that is an important event for the organizers...), and we also postpone the availablility of the project on the site!!
If we divide the value of the prozes, we will probably divide also the motivation...
Simple questions, many answers.