I am not sure what you mean @drmike.
If you say that before people were given fewer points you are wrong. It is now that the points are less.
The 1st ranked in the vote would get 3 points, the second 2 and the third 1, total of 6 points per voter.
Now they are given 5 points per voter but they can distribute as they please, one per provider (voting 5 providers which is quite common since many people have VPSes from many providers) or all for only one provider.
I didnt vote this time at all.
As for more geographically diverse getting more points, if that would be true, Edis would have won by default and last time when prometeus didnt have other locations would have lost by default. It is obviously not so. Also Ramnode doesnt have that many locations either.
Aggregating on brands is normal, you vote for provider, not for the web site.
While I agree on LEB the websites are listed, mostly, whether you have a cloud or storage VPS from a provider is irrelevant, if the product is good and your tickets were handled well, then you will vote the provider, not the product. There is no such thing as an independent product, it is only as good as the provider is.