There are two COMPLETELY different discussions here...
1. Was the co-op bridge overvalued this year?
IMO, if FIRST was looking for an exciting basketball game... yes, it was overvalued. You could have built an amazing balancer and did nothing but convinced or brute forced other teams into co-oping with you and climbed your way to the top of the rankings, then been able to triple balance with two long bots, and win the competition. (I dont think I saw anyone really do this, but I think its because no one focused 100% of their effort on this)
If FIRST was aiming to get us to think... and cooperate, perhaps it wasn't overvalued. It gave teams the choice... score baskets, balance/co-op, or do it all. If it hadn't been worth two points, I think a lot fewer teams would have put so much effort into doing it.
2. What is the "right" way to play the game?- Focus on Strategy to Win Matches
- Focus on Strategy to Win the Event (most teams dont realize this and the prior are different concepts - 2010 week 1 you could get zero points in every match and still rank in the top 3)
- Focus on the "Tele-op" part of the game (usually what the logo & name are based one (this can sometimes win the match/event, but usually not on its own))
Each team is going to have their own opinion in either discussion. The second discussion is a highly personalized and very divided topic. For me, if FIRST got the game completely right, top teams would have to be successful at all 3 to win the event. But its a very very tricky balancing act, and often years a strong analysis of the game points values can lead you to prioritize different features of your robot, and possibly realize that you don't need to do anything in Tele-op if you can score enough in auto or end game.