Would anybody find it interesting to compete for a 'Best Picture' award?
The basic idea would be, given a few constraints, as bit-rate/storage, and certain requirements, motion in scene, day-nite, LPR etc, who could configure a camera on the IPVM test bed to acheive the best overall picture possible?
Technology permitting, contestants could get access to the camera, make their changes, save their config and clips, and then have them voted on by the members at large.
John, at one time you had mentioned opening up access for members to an online lab; if you are still on the fence regarding that, this might be a way to get a sense of the interest and obstacles involved with less effort than putting hundreds of cameras up for thousands of people.
It would also be a way to see how much better an image one can obtain manually over that of the manufacturer's default settings.