Am I the only one who is feeling more and more like the Critiques are just basically useless?

Don't get me wrong--every once in a while, I get a really useful piece of feedback (for instance, I got a good suggestion from rgdrew and MegaMusen on my Let's Swing critique-sub), but this is just so exceedingly rare. When I do get suggestions, for the most part I've already considered and rejected them (for whatever design reason/preference/personal idiosyncrasy), but these tend to be pretty few and far between anyway.

By and large, I'll be lucky if I get 5 or more people clicking the submit/needs work/don't submit buttons. By and large, these seem pretty much useless, too:

"Submits" just reflect what I already think.

"Don't Submits" never come with explanations, so I write these off as people who don't like my style, think what I've drawn is absolute crap, or otherwise don't get it. Not much I can do about these folks.

The "Needs Work" people, on the other hand, are the reason for critiquing in the first place. And usually the people who click "Needs Work" never say what they think needs to be done.

All this being said, when I skim through the Critiques, while I want to do my duty and provide useful feedback, I'm also often at a loss for words. The fact is, I think a lot of what goes through the Critiques is just crap (I also think a lot of what is submitted for voting is crap, but to a lesser extent, thanks no doubt to the Threadless weeding-out process). Either it strikes me as poorly drawn, completely lacking in ideas, is utterly dull, or some other permutation of these. And when the people who've subbed these critiques beg for feedback, I just don't know what to say to them. Either I'll click "Don't Submit" or I'll just do nothing. So yes, I suppose I'm as guilty as anyone else.

There are, of course, a lot of designs that just aren't my style. They're usually well-executed enough, but they just aren't something I like. And so (unless I can see that it WOULD sell a lot of shirts), I tend to refrain from saying anything or clicking anything. I just don't feel qualified to pass judgment.

So, while I may continue to use the Critiques in hopes of getting that one useful bit of feedback, I just get so damned frustrated with it, I often wonder why I'm not just skipping it altogether and trusting my own judgment.

*sigh*