Locus magazine posted it's annual recommended reading list for stories published in 2003.

It's hard for me to understand how they can cite 129 short works of SF, and only one, one, came from Analog. Last time I checked, Analog had bigger circulation numbers than either Asimov's (29 items cited) or F&SF (17 items). So, if there are more people buying and reading Analog, how come hardly any of the stories in it were worth recommending?

Well, I have my own opinions why this might be. The Locus list is put together by the critics that review the fiction. Critics hate Analog. The stories in Analog, by and large, rely more on ideas than sophisticated writing. Analog is, perhaps, your father's science fiction magazine, concentrating more on story than style. And a lot of critics just love style.

Analog doesn't win too many awards, nor get noticed much by the critics, which is a shame for me, as many of my stories appear there. I think you can take a lot of the better stories out of Analog and put them in Asimov's, F&SF or SCIFICTION and they'd fit right in. For sure there are plenty of hard-core "Analog stories" that would fit nowhere else, and there are occasional pieces of dubious literary merit, but editor Stanley Schmidt has printed lots of interesting works that go against the traditional Analog formula. Unfortunately, I think many of the critics have already decided that Analog is too old-fashioned and just don't read it. And if they don't read it, of course, they can't recommend stories from it.

So, Analog will continue being shunned by the critics, while having the highest circulation of the SF magazines. Pity.