i don't see why there can't be a compromise - each contest should offer either an icon reward or a sum of wrz$ and a contestant would have to state in their 1st post of a new game what they would like to get in the end the wrz$ or the icon. this way everyone would be happy.
I'll PM more of my thoughts directly to Guy, but I do think he was running these entertaining and fun contests extremely well with the help of Dreamy. That was a lot of effort and time spent on coming up with and executing new ideas. I'd also like Crypto to know that for a first timer, she was running her contest very smoothly. I am unsure as to why things weren't resolved better behind the scenes, without Guy having to leave once again. Things seemed to have gone south rather abruptly so it's only reasonable that folks here are left scratching their heads.
Now, I want to express agreement with some of melanthia's points. I am not as concerned with the icons themselves as much as I think the contests themselves were quite good and, at least, a couple should be allowed to stay (hopefully with Guy's blessings since he was the originator of these).
I am with melanthia in that I'd personally rather receive wrz$ for each icon earned as it is earned rather than having to wait for a collection of 7. Many of the icon games were held late at night/early morning here, so being able to participate in them was a hit/miss several times. I did appreciate the lotto style contests to help users earn these faster. That said, I personally far prefer receiving a wrz$ reward for each game individually rather than having to reach a certain number of icons before receiving any reward at all. I had only been able to convert my icons for rewards once, so I am pretty sure there were others who weren't racking up icons all that fast. In this sense, the system can be tweaked/converted/modified after the contests are adapted.