I don't think the contests are why mission progress is slow, even for those who participated.

I'm fine for whoever doing the next contest.  However, I would advise against more character matchmaking, as we've had more than a couple contests with a theme that includes that so far.  Though it's far less likely that anyone might want to, I don't think we ought to do anymore fighting game contests either; I've done enough of those.  We've done two anime crossover contests as well.