Maxing out the sharpening slider on LR seems somewhat excessive. There comes a point on JP where editing a photo more won't make it more likely to get accepted. Bumping up sharpening +10-30 can be reasonable but maxing out the slider even with masking may not be the right move. I do know successful people on here who do put sharpening max or close to the max and have success with that so to each their own. Its just my opinion.