[Bill_B]

The major difficulty in this balancing negotiation is finding the people with whom you can reliably negotiate. This may only happen while you are queued for a match. Other times you may be able to find members of your opposing or alliance teams BUT they are not able to discuss or commit to any strategy decision anyway. By the time your own team throws up its hands when they find this "too difficult" it may have already happened for one or more of those teams you want to consult.

As with any difficult activity, you have to be convinced that the effort you're using to do it is justified. I think a thorough explanation of the value of bridge balancing in both flavors should happen for all teams* before the robots are even un-bagged. If not done by then, I predict that those teams will be at a disadvantage and unresponsive to suggestions made by their eventual partners or opponents. It may even be a good scouting question that can distinguish those teams who have a good understanding of the value of balanced bridges. Eventually you will know which teams are bridge-savvy by their seeding ranks.

*and the more team members that know about this topic the better.