Alright, did another look up of them on MAL, I stand corrected they have done some anime op/ed. Though, not a significant body of work and unfortunately nothing super popular (i enjoyed the Joshiraku ED). Although, I'd rather we have more voice actors instead of idol groups.

there are a lot of other top-notch guests this year, mostly courtesy of Sekai Project and Pony Canyon.

It seems any guest worth talking about that isn't a 'return' guest seems to have been brought on by Sekai Project, or at least their appearance been influenced by them.

The previous few years were definitely rather dry, guest-wise, though.

I respectfully disagree. I feel this year has been drier than the past. Not only have guest announcements been slow, but a majority of GoHs are no longer relevant to the current body of work. Meaning their last popular work was years ago.

We have several 'return' guests this year, and some even going from previous 'industry guests' to official guests of honor. I don't count return guests as star power.

All cosplay icons as official guests of honors are kind of a joke.

We have quite a few hentai doujin artists/manga-ka. I have nothing against hentai doujin artists. Heck, I am a guy, I am happy we are getting some porn representation here. But these guests aren't going to be very popular with the girls, and their panels are going to be a cock-fest.

I am sure to some people, who like the relevant work some of the guests have done, are happy with the guest list. I am too, I am thrilled to see Isuna, Itaru Hinoue, Ryukishi07, etc, but their latest work hasn't been recent in years.

A feel a strong guest list is when AX is able to pull talent from Japan from extremely recent works. Or big names that are notoriously hard to get. Everything seems catered towards a marketing goal from companies, which is kinda sad, because we're getting spoon-fed.