Your reviewed made me smile. I don't disagree with what you would have preferred as they are all fair points. The Viola melody in the beginning is ambiguous as it slips down in a descending motion. The melody outlines a chord, but the higher notes descend in a chromatic fashion. Even the chords are not stated so clear in the beginning. Not being anchored to it makes sense. Sometimes when writing in a certain frame of mind, you don't really intend for anything as I try to remove myself from it. I never know how others will take it.
I think what would help tremendously to being engaged to that busy line is a performance of it. The musician would emphasize a clearer pattern in the melody with the use of heavy vibrato on certain notes. With this library that I was using, I could not control vibrato and even with the vibrato they have that happens naturally in the audio sample isn't heavy at all. Phrasing is difficult in sample libraries.
I would like to experiment with actual musicians on the point you brought up about staccato. I didn't like it on the sample library because the weight of the piece sounded to dissipate. Needed to keep a weighty bass to keep the balls from dropping off. Think the piece would sound too deflated as it reached a climax.
The piano does play a smaller role in this. I was using it to accentuate the beat a bit more because it all started to get muddy in terms of movement and drive. Again, I couldn't mix what I wanted with the string library I was using. Perhaps I'll commission an actual string quartet in the future when I can drop a couple thousand. Then hopefully I would feel comfortable not adding that piano. Didn't have time to think too much about it while writing for the contest. I'll definitely play with it more in the future keeping in mind the points you have made. I appreciate your perspective so I can listen to this fresh and more analytically as you go over my blind spots.
Thank you very much.

I'm flattered. If we were to approach someone or something with an expectation to feel a certain way and it fulfilled that, could we truly express it?

Beauty is measured by subconsciously knowing that all things evaporate eventually. I would make a case that the reason people find beauty in things such as ice sculptures, flowers, and sand castles is because they are not permanent. Just like a photograph being a snapshot of a time that has already passed, life is beautiful because it is fleeting. This music may be beautiful for some and it may not be for others just as a collapse would be beautiful for those that have been oppressed by the very thing that promised them justice as opposed to those that have prospered from it. Who am I to say? I really don't know for sure how life will turn out, but I do know a hope. The greatest miracles happen in secret.

You mention melody and quality that you find lacking in your own, and it just makes me really want to share with you. It's something you can do. I don't have anything unique in terms of creating music. You're just hearing the end result of a very simple process. If you were to hear what it sounded like as it was coming together, that would help get rid of the mystique. I do understand that it's your way to express praise toward it and I thank you very much for it, but please don't view me on a pedestal. We just need to practice listening. Everyone has a voice, but listening only to our voice may be deceiving. It's the reverberation that happens around us when we scream that we are to pay attention to.

A poem of the wise about the inevitability of all flesh. Wisdom within the one that realizes this and lives with this present in mind.

I'm humbled; thank you for sharing your thoughts about this.