[Cory]

My feeling is that fully autonomous robots simply are not as exciting to watch as teleoperated ones. Autonomous is currently exciting because it is just controlled enough for teams to be highly successful at it. Games would have to be dumbed down a LOT for teams to successfully compete autonomously.

If FIRST wants to emulate the sports model, the majority of the match needs to be teleoperated in my opinion. Especially when you consider that many (the majority?) of teams struggle to field a robot that can competently play the game with the current structure.