[MechEng83]

Aside from the leading zeros error (which is a result of insufficient testing -- all teams experience this somewhere), I think the problems boil down to a lack of limits on parts in FIRST Choice and an inconsistent $ to credit ratio (individual team value functions aside).

Having some items where the $/cr ratio is 40+ and others where it is around 1 creates an imbalanced supply/demand.

My team opted for a right angle drill, axis camera, and several solenoid valves among a few other things because those were high value items which we needed and/or very likely going to use. We actually did not order the talon controlers, even though we plan on buying some to test out because their $/cr ratio was only 6.56 vs nearly everything we ordered, which was over $8/cr.

Having used 9 motors on the previous year's robot, I certainly understand the desire of teams to get as many motor controllers as possible. I think 4 is a reasonable limit for "free"

I'm not in favor of a lottery approach to distribution, as this can really mess up a team's flow of ordering parts that will work together in a system. Fairness is a term that gets thrown around in many different arenas, but fair to one person may not seem fair to another. All teams receive the same point value, but their $ value is not the same. Maybe it's not fair that some teams can just buy items they didn't get while other cash-strapped teams have to make due. Is it fair to pull back an order that was "shipped" to a team who had no control over other team's ordering issues?

tl;dr
make the point values correlate to real prices. put limits on items.