[Tristan Lall]

That's one problem solved, I think. This was the best way to handle the issue.

Among the remaining problems is that the competitive balance has shifted: now climbing is an easier task, and thus teams that chose to do it may not be as unique as they were counting on. But that's definitely a lesser evil.

Also, teams that constrained their designs according to the original rule now have to decide whether they're still competitive in this somewhat larger design space (with robots that don't obey the original constraint). Although they're not forced to rework their design, they may nevertheless choose to do so, for fear of being less effective. Given the particulars of the challenge, I think that's at worst a medium-sized evil—but most likely a non-issue for most teams.