Bloggies: Tempest in a teapot?

Looking for Tampa Bay triumphalism over at Ain’t Too Proud to Blog I got up-to-date on the Bloggie “scandal.” I think awards are a fine idea and they should be run fairly and they’re not very important but like all forms of popularity and attention they do matter, of course. They have real-world consequences. On the other hand, I don’t really understand why so many panties are in a bunch about all this.
It sounds like the nomination/judging system was fairly lame and easily gamed and that there have been what Jimmy Carter likes to call “irregularities” in the voting. Maybe the whole thing should be tossed aside. It doesn’t really seem worth getting worked up about.
Then again, maybe if I had friends involved, pro or con, it would matter more to me. Count the number of times the phrase “my friend” or “my friends” appears in this post.