Thank you for your kind words! As I said, I don't feel offended when I win nothing from this contest because I enjoy the process of creating something arty, and I would never do it if there weren't at least a slight chance of earning something from it, either merits or money. Sorry for being so materialistic, but I read(or was it in a movie?) some time ago that art should sell itself, and I accepted the idea, and I've never changed my mind on the topic since then.
No you are saying right most of the members are taking part due to prize involvement at big level and if they take out the prizes then we won't see many of them participating in it.As humans we need to be incentivised in order to have some motivation and do the work.But the next part is main as if we don't win we atleast we got some experience which will help us later on.
Sometimes the merit is one of the main reason why other submit their arts since there are generous forum member gives a good amount of merits on the submissions made by the participants so even if they didn't win in the contest still their effort has been paid off due to the merit they get. Maybe some other didn't expect with the prize since there are so many talented forum users join the contest.