I totally agree with you on the communication.
With all of us that entered the contest having to provide our e-mail addresses one may think that an e-mail would not be such an odd way to communicate with all of their perspective finalists.
I'm not trying to be snappish or hateful either.
What is the date they are giving as the "notification date"? Is it October 21? It would have been nice to see that posted on the "official site".