I don't agree with one of the premises, namely that editorial picks will be more "fair". I work at a company that competes directly with Apple in many areas. The app I worked on was never featured anywhere, despite getting to the top 3 in our category, and top 15 free overall. Being in the top 10 or even top 25 is the only traffic driver anyone competing with Apple will ever have, unless you're competing with something Apple acknowledges as completely broken (ie, you're Google Maps).