I guess the "political" answers are a product of my training in
PR and writing

I've had two day jobs in my life that people would consider a career, one for a worldwide media company, and the other (and current one) for another worldwide media company that happened to recruit me away from the first one. They both expensed a number of courses designed to resolve client issues among other things, and I guess it's all come in handy with the website. I still say things on the site at times that probably don't make everybody happy, but considering that WWE personnel still contact me every few months trying to bait me with a potential writing job in order to get "sample" scripts, I guess even though I critique are willing to forgive and forget.
As for the website features, you're right in that the reviews are among the biggest traffic generators, but the prize contests are also popular and generate thousands of entries per contest. As for the interactive features, I mainly do those to maximize a visitor's website experience here.