For the 2001 competition team #111 WildStang used the torq motor because the regular servo we were trying to use was not strong enough for our purpose. We also used both optical sensors that when activated by the driver via the joystick trigger ran a program that used the senors to detect the brdge and would allign the robot perfectly with the metal end of the bridge so that we were parallel to it so we would be able to lift the bridge up. It worked fairly well but after the drivers got so good they didn't need that function anymore.

Well,

About the motors heating and not working to well with their gear boxes. I am from team #5 and we just used that for our gear shifter. At times, it did grind, but we never had a problem, and we were only 1lb from the limit. If you can get a good drive train with out much friction, you should be fine. (By the way, we used tank tracks, which we could push with it out over-heating for a decent amount of time!)