So here's my two cents...
Kings Speech wins best picture because that's the direction of the academy. People will say Social Network was robbed and some others will say it should have been Black Swan (haven't seen Social Network, so I'm not going to unfairly back Black Swan). Inception is too much on the edge of sci-fi/fantasy, and as Bob himself has pointed out, those make the academy uneasy, though they couldn't avoid it as a great film and phenomena this year. The only reason I could even see a shake-up is because with the host choices they're obviously trying to appeal to younger people (they realize other than talking about it on boards for a few weeks, deep down most of us really couldn't care less and half of their true audience doesn't stay up for most of the show).
In the case of the Daft Punk snub, which I'm surprised people were surprised, that was some amazing music, there were times in the movie I just took in the music and ignored the extra long chase going on... but the academy is still probably too old to appreciate it. They did give best song for Hustle and Flo that one year though, so why could they recognize that, but not this... I don't know. I'll admit, I didn't even consider Daft Punk as a possible nominee, their music is amazing, but just not something I can see a dusty award show actually showing respect to.
The only snub I see as even worse is Gosling for best actor. WTF?! That made me feel bad when I heard that. I think in years to come he's going to be one of our generations best actors. As it stands I think he already is, it's hard to think of him as being around my age, because he's got a presence that makes him feel beyond his years. I think they snubbed him to secure Firth. This seems to be Firth's make-up year for a previous performance (though he's given a great performance none the less) and the academy doesn't want someone pulling off a slightly better performance or better received performance to ruin their "sorry for not giving it to you before". They may also be taking Gosling's obvious talent and youth for granted... possibly thinking he's got many more performances ahead that'll be nominated and actually win.
Some time before, someone just got an award they didn't deserve, and since the academy has been making it up to people a role or two late. Best actor and director seem the biggest examples where this happens.