[AdamHeard]

Unless FIRST has real dummies steering the boat (which they don't), they won't do something like ban CIMs.

It sounds like Frank is describing some sort of visionary change. Something truly DIFFERENT.

If you ban CIMs, and bring grandma to the event she won't notice a difference at all. Most students and mentors on most teams wouldn't notice a difference either.

Banning CIMs is the equivalent to the rude teenager who leaves his trash in the theatre because it "creates someone's job". It causes teams and COTs suppliers to scramble and jump through some hoops, but to no real net gain. Motors are just Torque-Speed combos (aka Mechanical power supplies) with varying levels of durability (head dissipation).

In industry changes such as a motor change (at least in the style described above) is generally trivial. I really, really want to believe the change we are warned about it something higher level and actually meaningful.

For reference to my mindset, the wheel change in 09 doesn't fall into the above category. It's closer to it than say the introduction of alliances in 1999, but it wasn't a purely arbitrary change to create more work for teams.