There's no question that Esri Story maps are quite awesome and often amazing! Well, how about a story map about some of the best story maps?? Esri has done just that, they've compiled a story map that shows off the best of the best that were selected from their recent Story Map competition - more than 400 entries were judged! - See more at: GISuser.com GIS Location Technology - The Best of the Best Esri Story Maps
Thanks for the tip about that blog post and thanks for highlighting the story map of story map contest winners. Have you also seen the Story Maps gallery: http://storymaps.arcgis.com/gallery? We update this every week with the best examples we can find, and it is keyword searchable, so you can easily look for topics or places that might interest you.
We also tweet links to great story maps, resources, and work that people are doing with the story map apps on pour official twitter feed (no need to join Twitter in order to view the feed): https://twitter.com/EsriStoryMaps