Can the GOTY podcast be "fixed" somehow?

It wasn't that bad imo. I expected way worse when Ryan was telling us about the technical difficulties.
 
And I found that chewing actually pretty funny. It's not like it happened all the time ... I noticed it just once.

More exercise and healthier diet fixes heavy and strained breathing.

When Ryan first said that Brad and Vinny's audio had been lost I was really disappointed but it turned out to be nowhere near as bad as I expected. There's not really any way to fix the problem and if there had been Ryan would have done it before the podcast was released.

I didn't really have a problem with it, but I can see how someone could

I dunno if you've ever listened to other podcast's, but even with what the had to do to get vinny and brad's voices out of jeff/ryan's mics, its still better than most other podcast's i've listened to. 

I have listened to much worse, but the breathing of Ryan particularly bugged the hell out of me.

Yeah, I believe Ryan might have mentioned how fucking pissed he was about it. I mean, can you imagine recording over 4 hours for a podcast, only to later realize that two of the mics had gone out? Ryan did a great job with the mixing though and it came out fine. All it did was make me hungry for chips.

Ruin? Someone's too much of an audiophile. Isn't what they're TALKING about more important? These guys could talk into a paper cup and i'd still listen.

The breathing wasn't distracting to me.

It wasn't terrible. However, the amount of loud mouth breathing was... off-putting to say the least.

" When Ryan came on with the warning message, I was expecting it to suck ass, but it hardly matters. It's a little echoey, but still largely better quality than other podcasts I listen to. "