Call for Entries Legitimate?

Greetings,

I couldn't really figure where to post this so I thought I'd try the corporate forum.

Each year I get mailers from so called awards/contests (you've seen them, Addy/Viddy/Telly/Davey). They are expensive to enter and expensive to accept. I've always suspected that they were really just a for profit venture in disguise. After a little research into one of them I discovered that the judging organization was not a true association of peers but a front for the contest itself. Their only events listed on the web site were the deadlines for contest entries. No meetings, no forums, nothing else.

My question is first, has anyone else had these same suspicions? Am I totally off-base?
Second, are there any legitimate contests juged by peers in the industry. Emmys aside, anything for non-broadcast? Anyone ever consider starting a contest through User Groups or even Creative Cow?

Thanks,

Hal