[RogerR]

I don't think that I can answer each point individually, but your post did raise a couple questions in my mind.

1) with regards to meta-collaboration: if its considered acceptable to deny a chosen team points toward their ranking by preventing the balancing of the co-op bridge, is it now acceptable to have teams they are allied with start throwing matches?

2) with regards to defense: red v blue alliance defense has many rules and penalties associated with it that dictate what is and isn't acceptable. As far as I can tell, there are no such rules for inter-alliance defense. This worried me, if this sort of thing becomes common. Do I need to worry about my alliance deliberately damaging, tipping, entangling, disabling, etc. my bot to prevent my from balancing a co-op bridge?

3) finally, the human element: while the above questions lean toward the extreme, I think events have shown over the past weekend that they may not be. As much as we work to prevent it, there are clearly very strong negative feelings against some of the top teams. When emotions are running high in mid competition, what may have been start as an objective and strategic execution of meta-co-opertition might turn into a vendetta by jealous teams against a perceived super team.

Just some more thoughts to chew on.