Create 3 categories by ages and piece count
The first criteria for most AFOLs (=the voters) is the esthetic of the designs. In general, complex and detailed designs get much more votes then the small sets. But the LEGO board of designers refuses most of these big sets because they are too complex and they need to aim a market for ages much smaler than the 16+.
Lego missed many sets that could have been very interesting for their development because of this contradiction.
To help these smaller sets, I suggest the creation of a classification by piece count and ages, in the same way it already exists for the lastest approved sets.
a/ 200-799pcs for ages 10+ ;
b/ 800-1199 for ages 12+
c/ 1200-2000 for 14+ or 16+
I would even say that the goal would not be to get to 10k votes but to stay the longest time at the top of the "most vote receivers".
Calculations can be based upon how many weeks a project received the most votes in its category.
At the end LEGO would choose at least one of the top 5 sets of each category.
Every participant who gets to this top could receive a reward.
This will give us a least 3 news IDEAS sets a year (which has been the case for the last years)
This way there would be one small, one medium, and one big LEGO Ideas set every year.
Lego can always choose to pick a 2nd set in one of the categories if they choose to make more then 3 sets a year.