OK - To address your points and clarify: I don't think box office should be a factor in assessing whether a film is good or not. I am not in any way advocating a snobby approach that ignores the popular. I'm just saying success (or otherwise) shouldn't be a consideration.

For example: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial at the time was the biggest film of all time. It is absolutely overflowing with cinematic imagination, magic, and heart, and it fully deserved to beat the admirable but conventional Gandhi to Best Picture. Even Richard Attenborough admitted that.

The Iron Giant operates along similar lines to E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, and is also a tremendous film. But it bombed at the box office and was ignored by the Academy. To my mind, it fully deserved a Best Picture nod, and indeed, that year, as a voter, I'd have been torn between a hugely popular box office success (The Sixth Sense) and a film that hardly anyone saw at the cinema, except me and my wife (The Iron Giant) to win Best Picture. Neither won, obviously.

My point is it should be about the quality of the film and nothing else. Not box office. Not politics. Nothing but the film. :)