It's very bad that a chop that not follow the theme comes 4th. I think that the judges and the admins have to be stricter allowing chops! This is the list of authors wich chop should be discualified:
MAXI
Uros Serbia
AKID_0831
Dr_Healt
VRaptor
borntolove
Hope that admins do something

I have brought this issue up before and the official statement was "it is not mandatory to follow competition guidelines but it will be more difficult to gain higher spots in the rankings."

Although i agree... it actually doesn't make it a rule that it has to be in a steam punk style..

It was just a theme... no rule - no where did it say 'it must be in this style' - so you can't really disqualify people

Then what meaning has making these competition? What meaning has including a theme? I think that if you include a theme, the user have to follow it... By including a theme, the competition is more interesting!

I put the non-themed chops lower ranked than themed ones when voting.

It's common sense

Yes I agree - but there is no rule
It wasn't very well thought out - it was implied that it should be steampunk, but nowhere did it say it had to be.

Competition rules/guidelines should be tailored to specific comps imo, rather than just the usual generic one

Well the thought on our part for themed competitions is that well... theme is in the eye of the beholder. IE: what is Steampunk to one person may not be Steampunk to another person which is why we won't enforce rules regarding disqualification due to entries which aren't entirely fitting within the theme. It's a big grey area, so we leave it up to the members who are voting to decide who has stayed true to the "guidelines"

What i'm trying to say is it's down to interpretation.

Ok
It has went for this round because Steampunk is an unknown art for the most.
But I suggest that in the next comp. you should include some rules about the theme