Yeh I did that design above (badly) with the cheap software I had but it was just to show different colours. Would have much preferred this style cleaned up than what we have got though.
You're absolutely right about the questionnaire, it probably did show 30% for the rose and 30% for the rivers. I actually made a lengthy post about this at the time of the consultation. I said the questionnaire was limited because voting for your favourite symbol is very different from voting for your favourite final design. For example, I prefer the rivers, but if it was a choice between the rose on top of the rivers, or just the rose, I would vote just the rose every time.
There should have been a second round of consultation to avoid that from happening. Or they should have had an Alternative / First preference vote. If say there was 3 options:
1. Three rivers
2. Rose
3. Rose stuck on top of three rivers
I'm sure number 3 would have come last by a long way if there was a mock up of the designs for people to see. The consultation itself was fatally flawed because of this.
They've tried to please everyone with the rivers and rose, and ended up with a bit of a clumsy design that doesn't really work. I'm sure fan designs with just the rose or just the rivers will appear over the next few days, and I'm sure they will look infinitely better.