Max is able to shamelessly and openly do the things Victoria wants to do but has to keep secret for fear of being judged.

You have it backwards. Max is the shy one who didn't enter her photo out of fear of being judged. It's only when she got rewind powers that she started to take risks. Except they're not risks when you can just rewind. Max is the fake one, she just tells people what they want to hear. If she doesn't like the outcome, she just rewinds and even uses people's words against them. Victoria is a b-word, but at least she's honest about it.

why Jefferson recognizes there's something fundamentally missing from the material she shows him

Which is why he chose Victoria's photo as the winner of the contest, despite Victoria attempting to literally me-too him. Right. Max admits she has talent has well. Victoria gets rejected because in Chloe's words, "every great artist gets rejected before they get accepted". Victoria is putting her work out there.

The only reason people upvote stuff like this is because they can't be bothered to refute this many falsehoods, and it suits the popular narrative of Max = good and Victoria = bad.