Over saturated photos in Challenges

I have noticed an odd trend with well placed entries to the photo challenges

It would seem that for some reason submitters seem to feel that their photo will be improved by winding the color saturation up about 50 percent.

Even more oddly, it would seem that the judges agree with them.  In a recently completed challenge "River Gorges" the first four place getting photos suffer from this misguided Photoshopping.

Am I the only one that finds the fourth placed photo of Yellowstone National Park nauseatingly over saturated compared with the copy below in which I have reduced the saturation by 40 percent.

Is reality just not good enough in the desperate search for the spectacular  or have I missed a new fashion for surrealism.

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Ex photo retailer in small town NZ. Now a collector of rare and iconic digital cameras incl Konica Minolta, Fuji and Olympus