I am having a difficult time making myself clear to Richard Berger

In reply to my reply, Rich writes:

the oscars have rules about what can be up for best picture (http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/rules/rule02.html), so if i were you i would have assumed that i (rich) had just assumed the same films that are up for oscars are up for my mythical awards. while this issue is valid and interesting to discuss on the whole, it was not an important part of the post and you are blowing it out of proportion.

ps a movie could "rip off" another movie, but still be a great movie in its own right for a given year. e.g. the departed was a remake that won best picture. furthermore, what if someone made a sweet mash up of only found footage from casablanca and the departed (a la the grey album in music) and it was genius. should that be allowed? interesting questions. but where do you see me shutting down this line of thought in my original post?

The question isn't whether a particular movie should be eligible for an Oscar. The point is that, in determining what should win an Oscar you can't merely consider a movie's intrinsic quality (but rather also its place in the intellectual history of movie-making).

The reason why I stress this is to explain to Richard, why this idea:

How about making the Best Picture the one that brings the highest combination of profit to filmmakers and enjoyment to viewers. Have exit polls at every screening of every movie and tally the enjoyment ratings in some manner (details TBD).

won't work. To wit: if you only (or even primarily) consider profits and enjoyment (exit polls), you'll be taking into account only the movie's intrinsic quality and not its context. People don't care that Yes Man is a rip off of Liar Liar, and this will be reflected in their dollar votes and exit polls. However, when determining who should win an Oscar, presumably we do care about originality (and therefore exit polls and dollar votes are inadequate metrics for Oscar-worthiness).