also, consider that it has hardly been fifteen years that many of the fairs out here in the west were squabbling over whether a quilt that was pieced and/or quilted by machine was eligible for an award of any kind.
Shows have categories, to be sure ... I am most familiar with county fairs ... if you need to change something in that venue, go to your fair board meetings and find the supervisor of that division and engage them in a conversation .... I found that the judges owned quilt shops ... guess whose students won the prizes! That last about three years, and then got changed because interested parties petitioned the fair board and made the whole thing into a conversation ...
As times get harder ... the point/controversy may be a mute point, eh?