I had this mostly written up, so I'm going to say pretty much what my sibling said in a different way :)

It's not about the ruleset so much as the players' attitudes.

There's a way to play Apples to Apples that's as a card game. You deal the cards, flip a topic, everyone puts up, the judge reveals the cards and picks a winner. It's pretty boring unless the cards themselves are hilariously lewd, hence CAH. (And I've played rounds of CAH this way that were just as boring.)

There's another way to play it, more like a role-playing game with the cards as a prop. The judging is a discursive experience played with the whole group. When the cards are revealed, due attention must be given to each one. "Fuzzy like teenagers. Fuzzy like... The Clinton administration? Fuzzy like herding cats, okay. Fuzzy like... Dinosaurs." Once all the cards are on the table, the judging begins. Unlike in the card game version, the cards which aren't relevant must be dealt with explicitly, and audience participation is encouraged.

"Dinosaurs just aren't fuzzy."

"What about pterodactyls?"

"Yeah, birds are technically dinosaurs."

"Okay, but birds aren't fuzzy, they're fluffy."

"Maybe it's fuzzy on the inside. Like dinosaurs have nice personalities."

If I'm hawking my own card, that's minus points. Or is that not my card, and I'm trying to sandbag it with praise? Complex interpersonal dynamics meet linguistics as every judge's turn becomes a little game to itself. And just wait until cards start to turn up that tie into previous rounds...

It requires the players be engaged and committed to playing with each other, rather than with the cards, but it's hopefully obvious how that's fun in a way that has little or nothing to do with the content of the cards themselves. So nothing against CAH or other forks, but people who think CAH is fun where A2A isn't probably don't understand what makes the concept fun in the first place.

The thousand blank white cards version is pretty obvious from my description, although I should add that you can do this for question cards, and you can specify that players have to play more than one card.

As for the advanced judging concept, it is exactly the same as the original, right up until the judge makes a decision:

1. Judge plays the question card. They can do this however they like

2. players pick and play a card in secret from their hand, placing it face-down

3. Judge shuffles the pile a little, to make sure they don't know who played what

4. Judge views the cards

Original Apples to apples rules strict reading:

5. Judge reveals all the cards played

6. Judge announces that one is the winner

7. player who played it gets the question card as a point

Theatrical version:

The judge, in any order they like, describes why some cards are discarded, and others stay in the running:

A: ' "My first car" and "football" are weak compared to "cheese" and "the French revolution" '

B: 'I hated "My First car", so it's not that one!'

C: 'Hah, you canny bastard who played this, I can never resist "cheese" ' [1]

C: ' ewwwwww, not that kind of "cheese" pulls disgusted face ' other players laugh. One groans. Another doesn't get it

The game is about words, descriptions, and events. To just say the word on the card seems... so out of character? (Plus, the original box art featured a greek/roman character, so pretend you're a philosopher if you like, or a mad emperor :P)

[1] The actual classic amongst my friends is any that are physics related, due to being post-grads