In reply to Matt Mullenweg.

This only works with ultra-transparency, with well-documented reasoning about why themes were chosen to be featured. Otherwise, it opens another can of worms regarding favoritism, nepotism, and/or possibly gaming the system. If something is featured it should be considered golden, worthy of attention, and at a minimum, a post about it should go out explaining why it's been featured. Theme authors, in general, get discouraged building for WordPress when decisions around choosing winners are not transparent.