haziness in imperial ipa

i know that a lot of judges and some of the pickier beer drinkers would count this as a flaw in most beers but i was listening to a lecture by vinnie from russian river and he said that many of his ipas had a lot of haziness and that he did not filter them. vinnie pretty much invented the imperial ipa so that would lead me to think that this was an acceptable attribute for this style. that is not to say that all iipas should be hazy because i personally prefer them clear myself.
so in competition, would say that points should be taken off for a hazy ipa. (not insanely hazy, just a little bit), or do you think that it should be considered acceptable.

Nah, in competition a hops haze won't hurt the score. Appearance is only 3 points anyway, and even if it did get a 2/3 instead of a 3/3, that really wouldn't hurt the score. A hops haze is not unexpected in an IIPA, and generally the score would not go down because of it even though clarity is desirable.

from the homebrew iipas that i have seen, i have to say that many of them do have a significant hop haze. I actually thought it was the standard and the few without it were abnormal.

I actually think it looks pretty cool...