Even if it is to be a regular event, I think first you have to decide exactly what you want it to be; are you expecting Absynth type creations, or is it something you would want simpler developers to also be able to take part in? I'd say keep the time limit "shortish" so that not so established developers have a chance too. If you give a full year, then someone already working for the likes of NI or Steinberg might smack something together in their spare time (a shoe-in for his/her new plasma TV) that no noobie dev could possibly match. Since magazines and the like expressed their interest, I say keep it so that the upstarts may have the opportunity to get some exposure as well. The limited time might also plays well to see how innovative the devs can be.
It's kind of hard to organise because you can never tell how many devs are going to participate or how much people would donate. The prize money would get better if people knew they were in for loads of goodies. Hopefully this year's competition will encourage that. You also can't tell what categories the plugins will fit into, so just instruments and effects is not good enough. This voting system was fair IMO because it simply chose what plugin most people were impressed by. Maybe the hosts could decide what they want every year, by limiting categories or dictating them outright.
This competition was great because it was spontaneous. Any planned events are going to have to be based on an agenda of some kind. When they know it's coming, the devs might even start their plugins a year or more earlier, which would be unfaithful to this year's premise... but the plugins would be f**king AWESOME!!!!!
what was everybody thinking??? 
