i have to agree with lastrite, livingsounds & angusmaclean. i don't care to win or not & i didn't want to respond on that point until now, but it seems others have the same view so i found it fair to be that honest to also respond.
it is obvious, that the focus has been shifted too much to production / finding production ideas / finding overdubs, etc. at least it seems it was not beneficial to only mix like a professional mixing engineer would make a mix with "release quality" given that material. a mix that sounds like its coming from a different room or vocals tuned wrong is not my understanding of "release quality" (sorry guys, but your mixes had other good ideas). pls note, that i'm not talking about stuff like e.g. tuning vocals in term of "focus to production", since from my view tuning of the vocals was not a production gimmick here, but absolutely necessary to get release quality.
long story short, i think a shortlist of course is always subjective, but it is way more "special" than i expected. further it is a pity, that this shortlist is the poll too, since there are some other mixes i would have given my vote. now the poll is too biased for me to vote. i hope my post is not understood as "bashing", but as critics with positive outcome. the latter one was my intention.
nevertheless, this was a great experience. so wanted to say big thanks to mike, young griffo & john for that contest! mike, your critics have been very detailed & "to the point". thank you very much for that! i hope you take my critics (& that of the others) also positive. maybe its a good different viewing angle on yourself and your decisions. thanks again & keep it up!