1) News and lists get tons of edits, but how much content added to articles about current events survives subsequent revision? How much time is spent adding 10

1) News and lists get tons of edits, but how much content added to articles about current events survives subsequent revision? How much time is spent adding 10 items to a list, versus the amount of consideration and debate that can go into a single choice of words in something like the van Gogh article? The wiki format is the best one I know of for the places where Wikipedia editors spend their time and energy. 2) Not quite sure what you're getting at. Having standards attainable only through months of concerted effort is a choice to encourage people to expend that effort. The featured article criteria could be made arbitrarily more or less difficult, and article quality wouldn't change as far as people uninterested in the distinction are concerned.