The word we are looking for is "Commercial Art". I am happy with that, and then bereft of the label "photograph", these images in the main part are compelling.
It depends on the goal the photographer has for the final image - documentary, artistic or a mixture of the two.
My default workflow, especially with landscapes, is to first create a documentary version and then where I see potential, to create an artistic version without caring about maintaining total reality.
The big question one must ask oneself, when pushing those post processing tabs is, why am I creating this effect, and what does it communicate to the viewer.
Otherwise we are dealing with an electronic version of a childhood box of paints to make blobs of colour and strange effects for no other purpose than simulating a trip on magic mushrooms.
It is very inspiring, and the images look fantastic, but if you check the rules of the competition, they allow things like composite images - so while not everything is a composite in this competition, you may get advantage if you have very specific photoshop skills. In other words, I think this competition is biased towards editing.
Unlimited cloning and compositing makes it less 'photographic'.
It's interesting that they see landscape photography as art which explains the reasoning behind the rules you quoted.
I suppose it's a bit like still life photography can be considered art.
Regarding post production, the more the final output deviates from a documentary representation of the scene the more it becomes an image rather than a photograph.
Hmmmm........but then, if someone outputs a sooc jpeg of silky smooth flowing water in a stream, is the sooc jpeg a photograph or an image since it's not strictly a documentary representation of the flowing water?
Looking at the rules, the "competition" was a landscape digital fine art competition where entrants were required to use a photograph taken by a camera as the starter image for their entry.