Here's something I'm noticing about a lot of these stories: In the Escape Pod contest, one could complain that many stories had a style like Asimov, a great writer whose style often left something to be desired, although he made it work for him with great ideas and a certain snappiness and wit which don't always translate to imitation well. But poorly imitated Asimovian-blandness fades into the background without adding much. In the Pseudopod contest, it seems that everyone wants to be Lovecraft or maybe Clive Barker in the gorey cases, both good with overblown description, which again does not often translate well when imitated by us lesser beings.
I'm not saying there are no good stories, there definitely are, but I find it interesting that there is so much stylistic similarity in each genre and that the failure points of so many stories I didn't like seemed to be the same thing. For Escape Pod it was no style, for Pseudopod it is overwritten, adjectivey style. I wonder if the Podcastle contest will be filled with unneeded songs and poetic descriptions of food? (Is it weird that I kind of hope so?)
