I'm not talking about what he deserved and what not. I'm not an active player for the last two years so I didn't watch him closely.

But to me +1 int for "just" a honorable mention (not even the 3rd place) is a damn nice reward.
If I'm a fire AP and I'm offered +1 to one of stats, that stat would be INT (not charisma), hands down. (Though nowadays I may think about dex).

We also don't mention that fire APs got some boost not long before he started Cabdru. Excision became much better and fire giant's inventory capacity got increased (more space for wands, yay!). After all, that was just a coincide...