To answer your question from earlier in the comment thread - only a demo was released for NaNoRenO. However, if I remember right this was always the intention of the devs, so it wasn't so much that they bit off more than they could chew and were forced to downsize, just that they used NaNo as their starting point.
I agree that all of these are great VNs, and the developers all deserve to be on it, but I would have preferred a little bit more variety, especially for such a short list. It's a little harder to get away with being on the list twice when there are only 5 spots. Loan Wolf by Rumblebee, and Plain by Fablesoft, for example, are two that I personally enjoyed and think could have potentially competed with the others on this list for a spot. Some others that I haven't played myself but have heard good things about are Blossoms Bloom Brightest, Girl Crush, and Love on the Peacock Express.
Zelan got a reaction from Plk_Lesiak in CUPID (free VN review)