FIRST and the GDC has received a lot of heat over this year's game in regards to the penalties. In reality, I'm not really sure these discussions and debates are anything new.
Here is a thread from just about 6 years ago. Pretty interesting thread to skim through and see how the FIRST community changes or doesn't change.
(On a related note, FIRST has received a lot of credit for being more open and transparent. 6 years ago we had members of the GDC posting about the GDC. Frank is still my hero, though!)