[Gregor]

Originally Posted by Ivan Malik

No... You are looking at it from a very different perspective than I am, hence why I said I'm looking at it from an FRC wide type of view and not an individual team view. Each team should always try and "sustain their excellence," but the larger system of FRC should not be designed so that the same teams can stay excellent. There should be some sort of factor that destabilizes things. Right now it very much so is designed so that teams that are ahead can stay ahead, if they don't have unforeseen factors like losing sponsors or build space, etc. This would be fine, but FIRST is also trying to enact cultural change and inspire not just its participants, but everyone. You can't do that if there is a natural division among the tools that are doing the inspiring, aka the teams. Other wise, the lesser teams eventually get so focused on wining that all culture changing avenues are ignored, GP and coopertition get thrown out the window. The concept that there is this semi-permanent group of upper echelon of teams and this lower group of teams, and that this is accepted, creates that division. In order for FIRST to achieve both its goals, of cultural change and establishing itself as a sport of the mind, there needs to be turnover of what teams are on top. I have nothing against the current top teams, they do awesome things and are doing exactly what they are supposed to do. This destabilizing factor can be an official thing from FIRST in the form of a game element or something else, it can be an idea that a group of teams decides to do, it can be a culture shift among the entire community of the FRC, etc. It really doesn't matter what it is, there just needs to be something that forces this turnover regularly. I thought that the FiM/MAR structure would do more of this, and it has. However the question of whether this is a change in sample size or a change in stability is the question. We shall see when the borders are removed.

I read this as you want to punish the powerhouses.

To paraphrase Karthik, to equalize the playing field do you want to drag the top tier down, or raise the bottom tier up?