Randy, I am not a guru statistician. But I have to say your question is not a fair question, statistically speaking.

You decided to do a random drawing in the recent AMS contest, right? Let's try another scenario in a much smaller scale.

Let's say Randy you decide to offer a grand prize of a private jet ride to lala land to celebrate 2009 New Year. The lala land contest thread is again in CommunityBuzz! Forum. There's no rule. FTers can post anything in the contest thread.

The catch: it's only open for 10 minutes.

You receive 100 entry posts in total. John Doe has 41 entries. Jane Doe has 35. Little Johnny makes 20 entries. The rest of the John Doe I, II, II, IV get the remaining 4 entries. You use a randomizer application to pick the winner from the 100 entry posts. (Well, 100 is really too small a number for truly randomization among 7 people but let's play along. )

Statistically speaking, the more you enter a contest, the more likely you get picked. John Doe will have a much better odd to be picked since he represents 41% of the total entries. So is Jane Doe's 35%.

After running the program, the computer tells you John Doe is the winner. (Surprise, surprise.)

John Doe is thrilled because he's never been to lala land and really wants to go. It will be his first private jet ride ever. On top of that, thanks to the 10-minute game, his total post count gets to 95. He can access CC Forum now! Even though John Doe is one of the original members, he never posts enough to meet the requirement for CC. Not any more!

It might be hard for John Doe to tell you his pure intention is just the lala land trip by now. He gains so much from the contest! It's a whole package. He thinks the boost of post count doesn't hurt either.

There are so many variables involved. Unless you take out the post padding possibility out of the equation, you can't say for sure post count really doesn't matter to (some) players. If it's any indication, didn't the mushroom counting games threads in OMNI calm down after you reassured no OMNI post count earlier this year?

Maybe there is not a significant number of FTers that are post count frenzies. With over 170000 registered members, 50 or 60 big post count players might not totally push FT over the edge. But it's enough to get noticed. I just think it's not a good thing for FT in general to allow any FTer to "abuse" the system, let it be bending the rules, padding posts, or breaching TOS.