Thoughts About a Publishing Company's Opened Submissions

This link http://www.sfx.co.uk/2011/04/07/blog-what-are-the-chances-for-an-unsolicited-manuscript/ will take you to an article about publisher Angry Robot's March opened submissions, where non-agented authors could submit their work.  Basically, they received over 700 submissions, reviewed 350 so far, and passed two along.  They estimate that when they finish reading, another two will be passed on and four total unagented manuscripts will be considered.  Interesting, for sure.  They also said in this blog that there were other manuscripts that looked good, but "didn't feel like Angry Robot titles."  The conclusion they reached was that first, unagented work is not economical/practical and second, they're not if they'll do this again but it's always a possibility.

First, I'd like to say that it's awesome they took a chance on unagented work.  Kind of goes along with their mission statement about pushing conventions (not going to say anything about their usual system because I'm sure you can figure that one out).

Second, I'm not a fan of the "didn't feel like Angry Robot titles" statement.  Obviously this is their stance based on their criteria, so it's not wrong.  It's just...personal thing, but I've only found one series I absolutely love/is on autobuy, and that is because it doesn't feel like an Angry Robot title.  It's a darkly humorous urban/supernatural fantasy that could just as easily be published by Tor, Ace, HarperVoyager (I think that's their fantasy imprint), and so on.  Other than this series, I have never been able to get into their work.  It's either too pretentious or too drawn out or just not what was advertised.  My average reading experience has been:
1. Pick up an Angry Robot title in a bookstore.
2. I assume there's a story because it's a book published by a legitimate publishing company.
3. The synopsis tells me there's a story.
4. I would absolutely read the story that said synopsis belongs to but there's so much unimportant background information and I need a dictionary sitting besides me and it's just too much work.
5. Book gets thrown in my giveaway pile, maybe half read.

In short, the opened submission was a fantabulous idea, they should do it more often, and I prefer books that don't feel like Angry Robot titles.