This is certainly the case. On the other hand, "best papers" are not necessarily really the most important papers. Often politics, e.g., proportional representa

This is certainly the case. On the other hand, "best papers" are not necessarily really the most important papers. Often politics, e.g., proportional representation of all important sub-fields among the best paper nominees, decide about whether a paper gets named "best" or not. Anecdotally, I know of awesome papers that were not selected as "best paper" and 'cute idea' papers without substance that got a "best paper" award.