I personally found it difficult due to the grand idea of the save the world from plastic bags. It was very tough to come up with a product, to me it seemed more devoted around systems.
The beauty of Cookies one was that essentially it was a bucket, and the beauty of the pierced it one this time round was that it was a single bracelet.
So a topic which lends itself to these sort of solutions is probably more ideal. Something which u can focus more on the initial new product development and styling. So therfore ending up with probably more fun and creditable ideas, which could lead to greater things. I dunno aout anyone else but i found seeing countless ideas on re hashing bags quite tedious to read. It also may of led to the quite poor presentations this time round. Mine included.
J and yourself hit it on the head by saying its a 1hour sketch session, which is surely about exploring forms, so more form orientated problems would be the better way to go.
Would it also be possible to keep the continuity going of the competions running, because the last one was great and steaming along and it all came to a grinding halt. Maybe come up with 2-3 titles in one ago, and sorted out prizes etc… so one could roll on after another, even though initial one might take a while to start up it atleast gives u guys then another 3 weeks period to sort out next 2-3 etc…
Either way it goes keep it up IP your doing a great job.