Alright, maybe it won't get you to the 'top', but cropping can help you get a lot more out of your photos.  Yet another great website for digital photography education, Digital Photography School offers some excellent tips on cropping your mediocre shots to turn them into extraordinary shots.

Many times as we take photographs, we see something that we really like.  Then we download (or develop) the images to see what the result was.  Often (for me at least) the element I was shooting is there, but the full frame that I captured isn't doing the subject justice.  Digital Photography School's lesson will show you some great tips for situations such as these. 
- Zoom a crop in, and remove distractions from the frame
- Experiment with different cropping formats
- Change the photo altogether by cropping out what may have been the initial subject.

There are also some things to keep in mind when you get crop-happy:
- Always use a backup copy so you don't lose the original shot
- Cropping in different formats will obviously make printing standard sizes out of the question
- Play around and see what sort of crop will work best, the possibilities are nearly endless.

It's best to always try for the perfect shot from your camera, but when those intentions don't work out, bust out the crop option and see what happens.  Less is more, ya know?