Is it me or does every other T-Shirt submission have either a 'love heart' or a 'tree' on it? Or both!?

A few of my (what I believe to be original) designs aren't getting past the admin folk.....

.....I think I'll try out some 'I Love Trees' designs. And just leave my integrity at the door.

I've only been a part of Threadless for a week now, so I can only form opinions based on the last 7 days. In this time I have noticed a large majority of users commenting on designs in a very negative way. This in itself isn't a problem, what annoys me is the lack of explanation. Too many people on here are prepared to comment with offensive one-liners and not back them up with a reason and/or any advice. My background in Art education dictates that I have to know and explain why I both like something or dislike something, (or even both). I believe it's unfair to trawl through people's designs with "This is just stupid." or "What the hell is this shit?". Comments like these do nothing for anyone... apart from pissing the designer off. By all means state your opinions. Be critical: that's why most of us are here. But please think about what you're saying and back it up. Give some advice: what do you think would work better, why don't you like it, how can it be improved... If you can't be of any help, then just give it a score you think it deserves and move on.

Hopefully I'll be proven wrong in time.

I've mentioned this in one of the T-shirt comment sections. I don't understand how and why people use other people's/company's brand/ident/character/logo/anything. I thought the whole point of somewhere like this was to create and produce great and interesting T-shirts with original designs. The voting system can't work in the same way if someone uses an already popular piece of imagery.

A common example is Nintendo/Mario designs. Millions of people love it, but surely Nintendo own it!

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for manipulations to some degree. Juxtaposition of known imagery to create a new and/or original idea is a great thing. I just believe that it's easy votes to a quick sell to slap on something popular that you don't have any rights to. A false victory... where nobody wins.