First, I would like to make it clear that this is not supposed to be offensive to people who have their project(s) featured. I’m also not trying to say the featured projects are bad, just questioning the very questionable description of this studio.
So, why don’t projects that fulfil the listed criteria, especially complex projects, get featured? They used to, why’s it different now? Here’s what I mean:

Propose Projects to be Featured studio wrote:
These are the kind of things we're looking for:
- simple projects
- complex projects

Why do the simple projects far outnumber the complex ones? There’s no benefit to featuring only simple projects.

What about innovative projects?

Propose projects to be Featured studio wrote:
- projects that show an innovative use of Scratch

Oxford Languages Dictionary wrote:
Innovative
Adjective
(of a product, idea, etc.) featuring new methods; advanced and original.
“innovative designs”
(of a person) introducing new ideas; original and creative in thinking.
“writers who are now viewed as innovative”

Hardly any of the projects show new ideas or methods. I think someone had a slight disagreement with that dictionary. Let’s look at another one.

Cambridge Dictionary wrote:
Innovative
Adjective
using new methods or ideas

Huh. It looks like they all say that.

Propose Projects to be Featured studio wrote:
- projects that inspire

Projects that inspire what? If, when I was new to Scratch, the featured projects were like they are today, I’d compare them to games like Minecraft and 2048 and think “Scratch is very limited. You can’t make real games on Scratch”. I can imagine other people would’ve thought the same. But you can make real games on Scratch. It’s just they don’t get featured often at all.