I saw this photo in the thread you're talking about. For what it's worth, I agree with the rating, and would probably have given it a 5/10 myself.
Now before you get offended, I'm not God's gift to photography. I get super lucky with a halfway decent shot every now and again, but most of my stuff is mediocre at best. So I'm not saying your shot is crap because I think my stuff is all that.
If you don't mind, I'm going to put up a photo I took back in November, on my first landscape photo trip, for comparison:
In my opinion, our two shots are in the same class, and would both be deserving of a 5/10. They have nice scenery, mine has a nice mountain and yours has a pretty clearing in the woods with a cabin. But from a photography standpoint, they are so-so. As the other poster said, there are too many elements competing for attention. Is the cabin the focus? The downed log in front? The stand of trees to the left? The same thing is true of mine, the mountains, trees in the foreground, etc. all compete for attention. Another thing missing from both our photos is a nice blend of color contrast. We have too many shades of medium-dark greens and browns, with not enough vibrant color to make the photo interesting. The largest thing missing from both our shots is lighting. We have crappy lighting.
After taking a bunch of landscape photos and not being happy with any of them, I got two really great bits of advice on this forum. One is that less is more. Figure out what I want to make my subject and figure out how to make everything else pale in comparison to it. The second suggestion was to go through other people's landscape photos and ask myself what I really like about them. And then figure out why that isn't in mine.
I prefer this forum over Flickr because I like getting more honest feedback. But I'll tell you one thing that Flickr is really great for. Find a few photographers on Flickr that do really excellent work in the areas you're interested in (for me that's dogs and landscape). Then go to those people's "favorites" page and see what photos they like. Pretty soon you'll be seeing an incredibly impressive array of photos that will help identify the difference between a 5/10 and a 10/10. At least that's what's helped me out. Now I've just got to work on taking the 10/10's.
It's easier to sit back and critique than it is to take the photo. When I look at your shot and think of ideas to take the same subject, but make it a 10/10, here's what I would consider doing; The sapling pine on the front left of your picture has some nice color to it. I might move close to it, and have the sapling be the subject, with a slightly narrow DoF, and the cabin as the background. When I look at your shot and think of ideas to take the same subject, but make it a 10/10, here's what I would consider doing; The sapling pine on the front left of your picture has some nice color to it. I might move close to it, and have the sapling be the subject, with a slightly narrow DoF, and the cabin as the background. Just an idea. Another thing that might work is getting an even lower perspective from the camera, less of a head-on angle of the cabin, and getting the cabin at sunrise or sunset. In landscape photography everyone has been drilling into me that lighting is everything.
I couldnt figure out what that picture was about. Too many elements with the trees, house, logs with no clear focus to draw the eye to. 
