Is \"backlit\" a general rejection reason?

Backlit is fine if used properly...but this is just over exposed and not in a creative way. Using a backlit situation means you have to use the shadows and highlights to your advantage, most of the time this will work on a dark or shiny fuselage, not very often on a matt paint like this.

Nice capture though!

Dima, this 'backlit' is not "creative". imho

Dmitry, to me, the main problem in your picture is that it is blurred and there is too much digital noise because you lifted the shadows too much. Besides, the black areas under the wing are quite odd, because the black colour should be more uniform...

If the screener just said "Main object is improperly lit", someone was not caring too much about his "job" and picked the first sentence of the list, because the backlit reason is the most neglectable problem in the photo.

About the creativity, your picture is not creative to me, it is just a side view of the aircraft. Anyway, we can see "not creative" backlits accepted every day, and every person in this thread (Matt, Alexander, Piotr and of course me) have that kind of pictures in our galleries. I bet that the screener that rejected your picture has some examples as well. Just another reason to say that the backlit should not be the main reason to reject your picture.

Cheers.