It's been going on for a LONG time.

I watched the first season or two and then lost interest, then a few weeks ago I randomly caught some of the auditions and was hooked.

One of my wife's and my favorite songs so far (possibly better than the original):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg-DXc08Ows&feature=related
(music starts at 0:58)

Definitely some great talent this season. The ones they are letting go at this point, are pretty darn good.

I am not a fan of this sort of show but I don't really know why.

Well they do tend to mold people into existing star formulas, and file off their "rough" edges. And then they make them compete in areas that they would never venture as performers. So, it's not perfect. Some of the world's greatest performers could easily fail in that format. The Simon bit was getting old, so I'm glad they moved away from that.

Absolutely true, very good points.

For some reason I really enjoy this type of show.
I especially like it when I get to see a bit into an industry or a passion that I don't know much about. That's why I watched 2 seasons of America's Next Top Model and 2 of MasterChef.
Those two shows have a lot of manufactured drama and b.s., so I kind of got sick of them after a while; still it was very interesting.

They've made some good changes this season. They've focused MUCH less on the bad performers, we've been able to see a lot more good performances. They added a Vegas week where they actually put together a team production number with costumes and everything and many of those performances have been exceptional. They still focus a bit too much on the drama, particularly the first group performance in Hollywood, but generally they've made good improvements.

Agreed, that may be why I'm enjoying this season so much.
A bit of drama is fine, but I like seeing amazing singers more.

I think this is their strongest season in a long while. Now is a great time to catch up on the season, the ones left are really good.

Heejun Han has added some welcome humor to the show. He's got a pretty good dry sense of humor. In his interview before singing to make it into the top 24 he said in his typical monotone style of delivery.

"I want to show the world that Asians are not only good for getting high scores on their SATs. They are also good at singing and entertaining.”

Then, after getting a few so so comments from the judges, he said in his back stage interview,

"Now my only hope is my dad. He has 10 cell phones and he really knows how to dial."

I like Heejun a lot.
We didn't realize that they were doing 3 nights this week, so we missed the boys singing but wow, good stuff!

I have to say that Randy has been a voice of reason though.
I think everyone up there is so good that the judges have a hard time giving serious feedback. Two or three times Randy Jackson was the only judge to say that wasn't very good ("sort of trainwrecky").

So far I'm rooting for Jessica, Hollie, Elise and Joshua Ledet (but I didn't get a chance to hear the boys).