Personally, "people" photography isn't something I have much more than a glancing interest in... landscape/outdoors/scenic photography is what I'm really into. I can say that, by and large, it's still practically heresy to enter a landscape/nature/wildlife shot into a contest if elements within were literally added to the frame and didn't exist there at the time of the shot (many such contests specify this in the rules). And I can also attest that I can't remember a single time that I've browsed the winning photos from a nature/landscape contest and seen elements that appeared to be Photoshopped into the scene. So, on that level, I'm not really sure what contests you are looking at. Admittedly, I have seen amazing shots that came together so remarkably well that I was almost instantly made jealous of such a spectacular photograph... but I had no reason to believe that it wasn't simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time and having the skill to capture the photograph properly and creatively.
To clarify, though, I've done my share of complaining about blatant HDR jobs. I, personally, am sort of turned off by the whole "cartoonish" trend... but that's just me. The fact of the matter is that many people really enjoy the style and, as it's always been with so many crafts and arts, the masses are the judge and jury of what is termed "good" or "bad"... even if we are all entitled to our own opinion. I use HDR all the time, but if I can't look at the resulting image and feel that it looks natural, it gets a one-way trip to the Recycle Bin. Then again, everyone's concept of "natural" is going to be slightly different.
I would agree that more and more landscape photographs are enhanced by brilliant Photoshop plug-ins and the like. Every once in a while I look at photo and honestly feel that there's almost no way that the scene looked quite so amazing when the photographer was standing there taking the shot... the colors are just too amazing, the lighting is almost unrealistically perfect, etc, etc. In short, it's been made to look almost more perfect than it possibly could have been in real life (if that makes sense). But if I can't perceive that some area is totally faked, then that pretty much qualifies as a great photo with great processing. Some trust is involved here, too... if you look at superb photos thinking that amazing elements MUST be fake, then that's what you'll see. Even if some landscape photographs are getting polished up to near mythical quality with PS plug-ins, that's still a far cry from adding entire elements to a photograph.
I don't think that great photos these days are 20% photo and 80% Photoshop. Along the same line of reasoning, a guy without the funds to travel around the world going to remarkable landscapes could argue that "in contests these days, it's 20% photography and 80% wealth to go to amazing places." (EDIT: I meant to add here that I think that, too, would be something of a cop-out) Photography is what it is... a constantly changing field where you have to keep up with the current or get left behind and fall into the "rutted, old-timers" category. Even if you prefer the "old-timer" category, that's okay. Every craft and art has that sub-culture of "doing it the old-fashioned way" folks. Maybe it's a good thing, after all, that there are always some people left over asking that we re-evaluate where we are going... even if that questioning doesn't change the direction of advancement.
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