Wow!.....Wow!!
Great job on this paper.
It is great to hear this from the referee perspective and you have a tremendous amount of excellent details on the long history of the progression of this problem. I agree that 2008 was the beginning of the dark times for rules. The good core game design of the past 3 years kind of mask this, since the penalties were more of a sidebar, hiding how bad the penalty rules actually were, since they were more avoidable.
I have always felt that the core problem with this entire topic is a volume thing. FIRST keeps adding rules in an attempt to control gameplay. As a result, the refs are overburdened watching trivial things with black and white definitions and not properly policing the grey areas of robot interaction with their full attention. Your perspective seems to reflect this same observation.
This is what happens when Engineers try to design a sport. Engineering is all about strict rules and controls, sports are all about fair play, motivation, balance. There are lots of grey areas in sports, and this is why we need refs. Not for black and white, we need them most for the grey.
If you are a runner in baseball and you get hit with a ball, are you out or are you safe? It depends where the ball came from. Refs decide.
If your opponent's ball lands in your machine in Aerial Assist, do you get a penalty? Yes, always, even with the rules modifications.
Fail. It should depend on where it came from. If an opponents rebound lands in your robot, why is this your team's fault?
All rules in an interactive game MUST have situational dependency. This is what the refs should watch, not the HPs finger tips.
FIRST likes rules. They have lots of rules about how to build robots, lots of rules about how to make bumpers, lots of rules about when you can work on your robot, lots of rules about how to get penalties on the field; rules, rules, rules, rules, rules. I think on this topic, less is more in every category. Most of these rules add little actual value and just make everything more difficult for all of us.
Quote of the day from your paper:
"most teams would rather have chaotic good rules rather than lawful evil rules."
Amen brother!
In about 4 weeks, the new VEX game will be released in Anaheim. I would bet $1000 that there will not be any 50 point tech fouls in their game.
The VEX GDC has ACTUAL competitors on the team, so their rules make sense. Just sayin'