Last year they put up the winner's single as a charity single (probably one of the reasons why it was such a success - yet it wasn't heavily promoted AS a winner's single) instead of having the finalists recording a charity single collectively. Why could they not have done both?

It worked well in series 5 - 7, then in series 8, the song they had chosen wasn't as good as the other three, a lot less memorable, and they unnecessarily brought out JLS & 1D because the producers thought the finalists weren't as strong as previous years.

If they were to go back to it this year, they need to choose a good song, but something probably a little less known (please, not Read All About It, that song is suffering from overkill now.) - You Are Not Alone & Heroes were great song choices. I know they do have the contestants miming because they want it to sound perfect to get people to buy it (at least that's what I think the reason is), but if they must, they should at least do it well. Still, we saw last year that the finalists now do the group performances live (rather than miming to pre-recorded vocals) so it would be a nice change.

Thoughts?

To me the charity single is synonymous with its peak years and cultural relevance. It's still an entertaining show that many enjoy, but it's not the massive force in pop culture it was a few years ago. So I'm not sure it'd be all that successful, making the winner's single for charity is probably the right way to go.

No, the winning single hogging up the Xmas sales is bad enough, I like the X factor but there's only so much I can handle with their media