After a batch of oddball magazines became National Magazine Award recipients last year, 2010 was about returning to more familiar names. Even so, there were surprises, including Glamour winning for overall general excellence, which begs the question: Just what does a general excellence magazine look like in this day and age?

We weren’t able to stomach Glamour‘s cover story on reality TV star Lauren Conrad and her two BFFs, who happen to look just like her. A photo of the three blondes faking a pillow fight with perfectly groomed hair was so staged and undignified that we couldn’t stop staring at it in disgust. The Conrad piece was the center of a bunch of articles on friendship and while we applaud the mag’s effort, we don’t know why women’s friendships inevitably must be depicted by gossipy sleepover parties. If this is the industry’s best title, then perhaps things are worse than we thought. That said, Glamour scores points with a more interesting — and realistic — story about a 26-year-old woman named Amy who used to be a man and the two friends she calls her other family.

General excellence winner in its category, National Geographic offers an eye-opening report on sleep, saying that scientists know how it works, but don’t know why we do it. In an effort to demonstrate the importance of sleep, the article opens with an anecdote about a woman with a genetic predisposition to a sleep disorder that will kill her if in fact she has it. The disorder disrupts people’s ability to nap, then their ability to get a full night’s sleep and, then, wham, no sleep at all. It is always followed by death within a year.

Category winner Men’s Health can make you a super being, if you’ll spend 20 hours a day doing all the work. As proof, the issue splashes a shirtless Ryan Phillippe on its cover to display the kind of body made possible by following the magazine’s reams of advice. Cover stories promise “8-Pack Abs In Just 8 Minutes a Day!” and “30 Instant Muscle Meals.” They’re just two of nine articles editors crammed on the cover to catch all types of male readers. For the inner man, there’s the guide “Strength & Calm — The Mind/Body Connection” and a piece, “The Time Bomb In Your Medicine Cabinet,” which advises flushing all your pills.

Wired has led technology’s pack since its 1993 launch by a team of Silicon Valley brainiacs. It rose to global glory in the past decade since Condé Nast bought it and launched international editions covering broader science. The current issue’s cover story, “Geek Power,” by acclaimed tech author Steve Levy, takes a 25-year look at how today’s titans and tragic idealists have fared, and what the next generation faces. Other compelling scientific articles delve into climate and its role in the rise of natural disasters.

Love her or hate her, it pays to be Sarah Palin. After losing her bid to become vice president and bordering on broke, Palin is now making big bucks as a personal brand. New York estimates she brought in $12 million in the past year between her book, speaking engagements and TV gigs. Who wants to be president when they can have a remodeled home and a new car in the driveway? Speaking of characters, New York checks in on Fabrice “Fabulous Fab” Tourre and finds that he has become a cult figure in some circles. Like Michael Lewis’ “Liar’s Poker,” which was supposed to serve as a cautionary tale, the Goldman Sachs trader is inspiring other wannabe masters of the universe to pursue a career on Wall Street. “Someday, I hope I will ‘outfab’ the Fab,” the mag quotes 20-year-old student Animesh Singh. Scary.

Despite the brouhaha over Goldman, New Yorker financial columnist James Surowiecki seems to think that nothing much will change on Wall Street. While banks get in trouble from time to time, investors always seem to be able to look past their failings with renewed faith. Sadly, he’s right. Janet Malcolm’s examination of a Queens murder trial is billed as an “anatomy” or a murder trial involving the shooting death of a young dentist, his doctor wife and a paid hitman. More than anything, it will leave readers feeling vaguely unsettled.

Time is disappointed that former golden firm Goldman Sachs was purposely peddling “junk” to investors. While it seems Wall Street was born greedy, the mag argues things weren’t always that way and blames a power shift that put traders ahead of investment bankers. The mag makes a valid point about the rise of a risk-taking culture, but it sounds hysterical and shrill to say “it’s our jobs vs. their bonuses on every trade.”

Newsweek‘s Fareed Zakaria takes the other side of the trade in defending Goldman, arguing the American people are rushing to judgment without waiting for all the evidence. Although Zakaria says he is in favor of financial regulation, he contends that by going after Goldman, the SEC is making the mistake of retroactively criminalizing what used to be “standard business practice” on Wall Street. Newsweek says former political rivals President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton make a good tag team.