987 has made a practice bot for the past 5-6 years now and have benefited from the extra practice time it has given us before/between Regionals and Championship events. It does mean that we put in more hours and resources but everyone has been willing to sacrifice for improved competition performance. That said, I think we would be less likely to suffer "burn out" if we could stretch out the hours allotted for build and revision in such a way that we wouldn't have to work 6-7 days for 6 weeks straight with late and all night sessions. I think FTC and FLL have it right. An open build season would put a lot less stress on everyone involved. Maybe we could even have more that a Friday off every week (which we went to this year to help avoid burning out).
