[Dr Theta]

I love the concept of pre-regional scouting. While getting estimates of performance may not be effective, getting a sense of what role a team plans on playing and how they are attempting to accomplish that is very useful.

Looking for things like these can be helpful in presorting your picklists:
-Desired starting position in autonomous
-Specific description of their autonomous routine(s).
-Drivetrain specs (types of wheels, gearing)
-Desired role
-manipulator specs

Using these you can sort teams into the roles they will be playing in an alliance, and work out how they fit into your strategies prior to your regional and then you can adjust for actual performance when you are there.

If you were to take this approach you could perhaps offer to share the information you collect with the teams that provide their specs/ pictures. That way you benefit by getting the information you want and build a working relationship with the teams at you region, and they benefit by potentially building interest in their robot and receiving useful information.