Your displeasure with the new format is well documented. But I think I've heard more positive comments on the post-season contest than negative ones.
Winning this contest was just like any other, in that it involves a careful scrutiny of the specifics of the rules, and then the careful application of a strategy that one feels gives them the best chance to be successful.
The statement that the winning entries had serious flaws seems illogical to me. If "serious flaws" resulted in winning a prize, then perhaps they were not serious flaws. I might re-state that comment to say that the winning entry had fewer flaws than the rest of the entries did.
A simple reading of the rules makes it obvious that the most important element required to score the most points is having active and productive players still avilable and earning points in the weeks with the highest multiplers. That, in turn, requires accurately predicting which teams will win their games in each round. So whomever won the costest obviously did a better job at that than you and I did.
If you are saying in hindsight that the winner might have done even better, then I agree with you. That will always be true because it's probably impossible to guess which teams will win every game, and also guess exactly which players will score the most in each game.
It will be interesting to see what unfolds for next season. That time can't come soon enough.
At least we have hockey.