[dcarr]

This is a scouting related question that somewhat relates to this thread: What are successful ways to motivate students to do a quality job scouting (both quantitatively and qualitatively) when they do not think their work will be used in the alliance selection process?

My answer would be: quality scouting data is essential for developing the strategy for any and every match, not just eliminations. Also, even if you are not ranked #1-8, but are within a few places of that, the possibility of getting bumped up as the top teams consolidate, and then needing to choose an alliance, is very real. In addition, when attending multiple regionals with a lot of the same teams participating, having quality data on a lot of the teams ahead of time has huge benefits.