That`s what I was trying to tell them in my email. It makes absolutly no sense to start a level design contest that is on the one hand focused on nice architecture, a good level flow, good lighting etc., but on the other hand forbit to use even a single texture or model from thousands that are already avalable for free. Nobody has so much time, so much effort, not even professional companies create everything by themselves and very few people even got the talent to do that.
I made an advice: Restarting the contest. Allowing people to use royalty free artwork. That would be an interesting contest with many participants, exciting results and a nice outcome for the whole community. The results don`t have to be completely open source on AUM, a compiled exe and a link or email adress where to get the source files is completely enough. Also, there`s no copyright violation if the authors are explicitly named.

So what`s the deal?