I agree with not everything but most of what Paphioland says.
By the way, purely curiosity's sake, I wonder why you use awarded stud as a nickname under your member ID? lol
To me, AOS awards mean nothing.
It actually is highly annoying to me, because when vendors sell new crosses, they generally charge a lot more for using certain parents.
Sure, there is the hope and possibility of something resembling the "greatness" of the said parents, but with huge genetic mix and match involved in seed propagation, results are often not even at all.
So, to me, this is just an excuse of charging more money.
I understand many people do put big emphasis on awards, hence the market goes.
I find that annoying as well. After talking to a few members in my local society meeting, I sense people have huge misconception like if you have awarded plants, it means you are a great grower. Ridiculous! Or awarded plants automatically means superior and get recognition. It is hard to put any sense into those people, and some are older and "experienced" folks with high ego and pride, even worse and harder to talk any sense into those. lol
It is natural that when there is any group of anything, people like come up with a system to categorize or "judge" things according to artificial criteria agreed upon by a certain group of people.
I just don't agree with how awards are given.
CCM and CCE might be slightly different case, but still.
Talk about inconsistency. I have seen plenty of pictures of awarded paph flowers that was not even up to their standard. Symmetry wasn't there, clearly wonky petals and sepals, it was just horrible! Many are good to look at, though.
Just my view.
Also, as always been mentioned by Paphioland, serious collectors do not care about the awards. They have their own taste and standards, and they take what they want.
I have friends who grow orchids and never show. It just means nothing to them.