254's bot in 2009 was awesome, and it was incredibly dangerous if left alone.
That being said, it had one major 'flaw' - the same flaw that all long based robots had that year, which was the inability to spin out of certain pins. Going into the Championship, most teams with long based robots knew of this flaw and tried to avoid a 'RAWC Pin' if possible, because it was basically a guaranteed lose for the team that was pinned if the pin executed correctly.
We were also a bit of a wildcard on Curie that year, seemingly coming out of no where and going 5-1-1 and playing as the captain of the 6th seed thanks to some smart play, a decent schedule and a bit of luck. Going into the QF's against the Poofs and Buzz who were playing from the 3rd Seed, we knew we were out gunned if the Poofs were allowed to score. Because of this, 816 as the alliance captain, decided the best strategy would be to 'remove' 254 from the match, leaving the 3rd seed with 1 scoring robot and 1 defense robot effectively giving us a 10 to 15 ball advantage, if not more.
In Match 1 I wasn't able to get a good hold on the Poofs and our alliance played a bit sloppy. After a lot of yelling, jumping and high-fiving, we came back to win Matches 2 and 3 without too much trouble.
In retrospect, that sort of upset probably wouldn't have happened in any other game or if there had been pinning rules in 2009.
Here's a picture of us executing a RAWC Pin in one of the Curie QF's:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/33886