[sbak94]

"Firstly, the ranking system. This year's seemed to particularly wonky. At a regional as large as NYC, eight matches per team simply don't cut it. How can a robot's abilities be assessed fairly in comparison with the rest when it mathematically does not have the chance to play with/against every other team."

You are lucky that you get 8 matches. At the Seattle Regional which has almost the same number of teams, we have gotten as few as 6 matches each in the past.

I agree with what others are saying, if you want to have a more accurate ranking system, you would have to be paired with every single possible combination for both your own team and the teams that you are against. There is no feasible way to do this unless we were to stay at competition for days...
I believe that the majority of robots that deserve to be in the top are usually there, although sometimes it is a bit wacky as you said. But overall as a student that has been with FRC for six seasons, I feel like FIRST does a good job of setting up rules and ranking systems that work pretty well.

It is impossible to ask the VOLUNTEERING refs to do an even better job reffing than a team of football, basketball, soccer or hockey refs that are TRAINED and PAID PROFESSIONALS. I think that the refs do a pretty great job, and I am saying that after my team suffered from some hard debated calls last year at the Spokane regional. Nothing will ever be perfect dude.

If you have such an issue with it, don't participate in the program anymore. Maybe you should go out and start your own robotics competition that includes the things that you see "missing" from FIRST competitions.
Overall I do not see how you could have such grief over something that is supposed to be about learning. That is the whole point of FIRST. And sometimes students AND adults need to learn to accept defeat and BS that comes their way, which a situation like yours seems to have been a great opportunity.