Chris, two threads for such a wild and contentious notion is highly inconvenient, though I imagine it's quite effectively tamping down the back and forth argument that so often balloons these threads to hundreds of posts.
That said, my comment is more in the vein of how I think this could be successfully implemented, so it's positive-ish and in this thread.
The presumed merits of this are to simplify game design, rule refinement, and rookie and spectator friendliness. The obvious cons, briefly, are the risks of boredom, plagarism, and even more dominance by veteran teams. I think the correct approach to the "minor" annual changes can really minimize those cons and make this a decent idea. The key is in just how "minor" those changes are. We have some good examples of this working well in various off-season competitions, so I'm pretty confident it could be done. The key is in making changes that render previous strategies and robot designs much less useful, if not useless, while maintaining a similar look and feel of the game.
For instance, take this year's game. I think there's some obvious changes to make that would keep things largely the same, but require all new robot designs and strategies:
- Change the game pieces to something heavier or less rigid. (Floppies, anyone?)
- Change the scoring locations. Feeders with drivers, grid on opposite side of the field.
- Change the minibot game. Last place wins, flat rate for finishing, bonus points for stopping in a target area.
- Change the strategic value of the minibot. Feeders can't enter pieces until after 45 sec or their tower is triggered.
- Change piece entry. Only triangles in first 45, then circles, then squares.
- Change robot size/weight restrictions ala 2007. Esp if you work it to restrict the winning designs from earlier years.
- Switch to colored game pieces, colorless grids.
And that's just what I came up with over lunch. I think there's ample ways to change any game enough to keep things interesting while maintaining a familiar look and feel.