There is no channel more appropriate than the mailinglist. Full-stop! TMO is not maemo.org but used by its members. (thought I did not need to elaborate this as it is widely known). Do you want to use the garage system or even bugzilla for this or maybe #maemo? Stop it now!
Furthermore, Coding Competition had priority over other categories when picking devices they like to have as awards - only due to good will of CC organizers, they're using fair share of 1/4 pool. Technically, if they would want whole lot of N950's they would get it. Unfortunately, Council doesn't have any impact on those rules, made by Nokia. But, to be fair - they were not obliged to give us *any* devices, so lets use what we have in best possible way.