FYI, we (I) wanted to do an RTS as an Admin pick badly last time, but with no support during voting it's not gonna happen.
The admin picks we definitely weigh what's being voted on. The reason for the admin picks is so that we dont always play the same games and/or sneak in something new to try.
Categories were kind of pointless in that League of Legends would always win the RTS/MOBA so you never really had a chance to play anything else the way we had it setup. Our goal is really to see what games and types of games people are interested in playing. If we see heavy support for RTS or a game like Worms, there's a good chance we'll run something.
Last LAN, RTS votes we astoundingly low compared to everything else.
In general our goal is to get 40+ people in every tournament.
I know almost my entire group (8 people) would be interested in an RTS, but being able to only get 2 games means you're gonna vote for what games are up for contention that you really want to play over a dark horse. Example, I would vote of LoL over DOTA because they'll both get a bunch of votes and I play League and not Dota.
Is there any chance something like an RTS could be a prizeless tournament run between other tournaments? I think when SC2 came out something similar was done where players had most of the tournament to play out the brackets? It might be a good way to feel out RTS's for the next LAN.