I agree the best paper award should go to the paper with the strongest contributions, perhaps with writing quality as secondary. I don’t agree with your last sentence.
Writing quality is often a make or break thing when it comes to whether a paper is accepted or not, mostly because it makes a paper easier to understand, ie its contributions and the evidence that they are truly there are easy for a reviewer to pick up on and appreciate.
Furthermore a well written paper is a far larger contribution to the research community - the audience post reviewers - than a poorly written paper with the same contributions, for the same reasons: well written papers can be a joy to read, particularly if a leap in contributions are presented in an easy to understand way.
I understand that these things are cultural (ie field specific) but this has been my experience.
Writing quality is often a make or break thing when it comes to whether a paper is accepted or not, mostly because it makes a paper easier to understand, ie its contributions and the evidence that they are truly there are easy for a reviewer to pick up on and appreciate.
Furthermore a well written paper is a far larger contribution to the research community - the audience post reviewers - than a poorly written paper with the same contributions, for the same reasons: well written papers can be a joy to read, particularly if a leap in contributions are presented in an easy to understand way.
I understand that these things are cultural (ie field specific) but this has been my experience.