Same here! I am utterly unenthused by the stated mission but I still hunted down every possible point just because they were there. Great game mechanics. I guess I'm just a sucker for ratings.
Is it just me or is the topcoder website confusing? I've never really managed to find what I want to whenever I go there (pretty much the exact opposite experience to the submitted site which drops you immediately into coding)
Yes they use competition, but its not about that, its the context and how it's used that's important. It's a fundamentally different approach, just wait for our next step...