I find YA panels at cons a little frustrating, because it seems you need to spend half the panel trying to explain what YA is to an audience that hasn't been near the YA section of a bookstore or library in ages (it's not fiction for elementary school kids, it's also not fiction with the sex and violence and language removed ...) And often not just the audience--I've been to cons where the panelists don't know what YA is either.

And even outside of cons, every so often it seems another adult writer decides "oh, maybe I should write a YA book now," goes off to read a few, and comes back with "OMG how can we be exposing the children to Books Like This." (Because that YA books are for teens, and that teens are not children, is a huge part of the misunderstanding.) (Also that teens are intelligent and critical readers who won't be harmed be random content and in fact often question and argue with their reading more than adults do.)

Also, if I hear Heinlein invoked one more time, I'm going to scream. Because if you can't understand why Heinlein juveniles are not the way to introduce contemporary teens to SF, well, you need to go read more and spend time with teens more both.

The best YA panels I've been to/on have been the ones where there've both been teens in the audience, and the panelists have had sense enough to let them speak.

I think one could do worse than to have those teens on the panel, and to put the adults in the audience so they can listen a bit more.