Please be specific when making such posts as generalities are hard to clarify. I can tell you from coaching teams since 2001 and attending multiple events for many of those years, that the set of inspectors at one event may interpret rules and mechanisms in one fashion while at another the same rule or mechanism may be seen in a different light. This is the reality of having tens of thousands of volunteers all working for the same organization. FIRST has developed training materials and certification exams to help provide a consistent experience for teams across events but as with many things in life, there is some human subjectivity that creates variances. I don't know it to be the case here, but in the past, FRC has changed what is allowable from one week to the next.
I can tell you that at both events, the folks who performed robot inspections were long time FRC coaches and mentors so even though Alamo was a rookie event, it had a veteran crew in critical areas such as inspection, field crew, judge advisor and the like, even down to the master of ceremonies and game announcer.
