Wally commented on this today and it is the first I had heard of the controversy:

http://www.dicks-blog.com/archives/2006/02/01/the-deterioration-of-the-mvp-program/

My .05 cents is that anyone who puts in 20 hours/week of unpaid time to
the Microsoft cause deserves to be rewarded by Microsoft. Just do the math: 46 weeks
x 20 hours x <insert hourly bill rate here> = an awful lot per year. They
really deserve it!

Us part-time players just love to pad our resume by doing a few presentations a year,
but the hard core participants really need rewarding!