Top iPhone Paid and Free Apps for 2008
A list of top iPhone apps for 2008 has been published by Apple for apps downloaded and purchased from the iTunes App Store this year.
Applications are sorted into categories: Top Overall, Top Games, Top Entertainment, Top Utilities, Top Music and Top Social Networking. The categories are listed for both paid and free applications.
As pointed out by our colleague Tom Krazit at News.com, six of the top 10 paid apps were games, including Apple's Texas Hold-Em and the heavily promoted Super Monkey Ball from Sega, but Koi Pond's "mesmerizing virtual aquarium" led the way as the top-selling paid application for the iPhone and the iPod Touch
You can access the list via this iTunes link

The What's New section has no correlation to what really is new ( as far as I can see) and who knows how the staff favourites are decided upon.
And what criteria is used to determine "what's hot"? is is purely sales (does paid/free make a difference) or do reviews come into play in anyway?
If you are lucky enough to have an app featured then maybe your app will be in the top 10 next year....
caveat - I should say it does help to have a good app too!