Argo: Is it worthy of Best Picture?

Argo, Ben Affleck's recreation of a real CIA operation in 1979 to rescue six americans trapped in Iran at the height of the hostage crisis won the Oscar for Best Picture last year and garnered solid reviews from critics and viewers alike. Like The Town, Affleck's 2010 venture into directing, Argo also features Ben Affleck as the star and hero. Affleck is a regular analyst at the CIA, who comes up with the wacky idea to use a canadian movie set to give the americans some backstory in hope to get them on a plane out of Tehran.
Argo was clearly a contender for the Best Picture from the get-go, with one of Hollywood's brightest stars pulling double duty directing and starring and unstoppable supporting actors like Bryan Cranston, with his Walter White pre-cancer haircut, John Goodman and Alan Arkin.  With all this personality, how could Argo possibly lose?
Ben Affleck did a bang-up job directing Argo, perfectly capturing the fast-pace and absurdity of the entire plan, but was it the best picture of the year? Against diverse competition this year, Argo was the only real blockbuster among the group except Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained which never really stood a chance due to it's racial themes and extreme violence that never meshes well with the aged Oscar panel. The rest of the competition could be ruled out for a multitude of reasons: Amour and Lincoln were hard to watch due to their dull points that popped up constantly throughout the films; Zero Dark Thirty gathered some serious controversy, as veterans groups and the government were up in arms about the release of tactics and equipment; Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook and Beasts of the Southern Wild all could have been great cases for the Oscar, but went against the grain of typical Best Picture winners due to their weirdness and indie status.
Argo is definetly a great movie, but was not the clear pick for the Oscar and against movies with more commercial appeal, it probably would not have won.