We were specifically told to use one of the first four questions to reject a nomination:
It was never confirmed that voting down the last three questions will reject a nomination. You are probably accepting these if you are voting this way.
Not “Distinct” is as close as we can get in the new review flow to “This doesn’t meet criteria” and we have not had any input from Niantic recommending any other way to indicate this. It certainly isn’t “Generic business” that a lot of reviewers seem to be using to indicate something is generic.
I agree with you that the majority of reviewers and submitters only go by what they see in game and submit and accept these city fund raising type benches that I think is what you are referring to as “sponsored”. You are correct that once they are in game, they do not meet removal criteria.