[Jared Russell]

Last year was, IMO, the hardest technical challenge FIRST gave us (really controlling a ball that you can't really grab, kicking, traversing bumps, and hanging were all difficult enough that few teams did all of them effectively). As a result, spectators at many regionals did not get to watch a competitve, high-scoring game until the playoffs, if at all. I wonder if this fact influenced the GDC's thought process...

This year is, IMO, the simplest technical challenge FIRST has given us in a long time. Merely hanging a tube and getting a minibot to climb a pole on a flat field are much simpler bars of success compared to last year. On top of that, there are plenty of resources (videos, photos, even a book) leftover from 2007 that teams can use to help them design tube-manipulating mechanisms.

The result is that even at early regionals or those with more high team numbers, you are far more likely to find competitive matches. To FIRST, I'm sure that is a "win".

For the teams on the other end of the spectrum, we just need to work that much harder to set ourselves apart from the crowd - making incremental improvements, as John said.