[Lil' Lavery]

The Chief Delphi bias strikes once again. Please keep in mind that CD is not representative of the FRC population as a whole, and most teams who post actively on CD are above average.

Most of the elite teams meet constantly, and well past the stop work date. They have aggressive schedules, practice robots, practice fields, and lofty goals.
Will eliminating the stop work date improve their result? Probably to a marginal degree.
Will eliminating the stop work date reduce their mentor stress? To an extent, especially on competition weeks.

Most of the FRC population does not meet constantly, and scales back their efforts significantly past the stop work date. Their schedules are still demanding, but less so than the FRC elite. They don't have practice robots, and have to do significant testing and driver training at their first (and frequently only) event.
Will eliminating the stop work date improve their result? In large part yes. Bottom teir teams will still struggle (it doesn't take six weeks to build a box on wheels with bumpers, more time is not going to fix the teams who cannot do that). Middle teir teams will likely show up much closer to ready, but many will still not have ever put their robot on a real field to get proper autonomous testing and driver training.
Will eliminating the stop work date reduce their mentor stress? Not likley. Even without meeting every day, these mentors are often pushed to (or well past) their limits. Extending that build period will not help matters, even if their robot does better.

Obviously these are generalizations, but it's how I feel these types of changes would impact generalized versions of teams. I'm in the same boat as Madison (including that competing early in the season is a disadvantage to many teams who have yet to pass the threshold of being competitive). 1712 meets 3 times a week, with some additional meetings late in the season. More time would help, but few of us have that time or energy to spare. We're all exhausted when the build season ends, as it is.

I don't know if a longer build would raise the "floor" per se, but it would likely help with raising the 25%-75% percentile of teams. However, you may well see the number of teams drop, as mentor burnout increases.