Also what do you all feel about the IGF entry fee as top prize? Results after some of the past winners being given the opportunity have been mixed. And in most cases it's too short of a timeframe to complete your entries to make an IGF worthy submission. What are your thoughts?
That's quite an interesting question. I know that i'm guilty of not finishing an (in my eyes) IGF worthy game while I won that prize, so I feel like giving a comment on this. I think the basic idea of the IGF prize is rather good but it's succes really depends on the motivation of the winner to continue the project and to make a beautifully polished inspiring game. In my case, I couldn't pull that off. It might be worthwhile to make this prize optional. If the winner decides not to continue the game, it may be possible to offer an extra book/video-game or maybe a piece of hardware. I bet everybody likes that. When you sacrifice the IGF prize and one book you could offer a piece of nice video-hardware instead.. yummy!

But above all, I think that the prize pool was huge. If I look at the value of the prizes, my PGD annual entry was the most profitable project I have ever worked on. Not complaining here.