[Chi Meson]

I would still love to see a use for the center bridge.

I'll join the chorus of "hey, I'm really OK with the rule change, and I'm not speaking for my whole team," but I don't want to back off from my early and consistent hope that a 10-point center bridge bonus (heck, even 5-points) were available to counterbalance* the huge bonus for triples.

*See what I did there? ;}

Thinking through the probabilities: the benefit of tripling through the quals (which I do find highly enticing!) is that the many strong robots at IRI will get over twice the opportunity to practice this skill. As a result, there will be a lot of failed attempts. This means a lot of flipped robots and bent stingers. The potential for costly disaster is much higher with the arbitrary alliances of the quals.

I am not "against" the rule change; I am in the category of "tweak the tweak." My personal (and strongly yet respectfully submitted) opinion remains that there should be some mitigating opportunity for a robot/driver to compensate for an opponent's 20-point surge.