[jman4747]

Originally Posted by Siri

Which is exactly the problem. HQ made the deliberate choice to limit their level of research into this issue, and thus their potential for informed thought and analysis. The "what if" is already there: they put it there. What if they'd been transparent? No one can know how this will play out, and HQ made the conscious decision to introduce unknowns into their decision.

Maybe they are right. Maybe "we" are right (whoever "we" are). Maybe we're both wrong. No one will ever know which is most true, because only one decision can be (and will be) implemented. This is normal and inevitable. The current assessment is necessarily a probabilistic one. In those terms, being informed by your stakeholders raises your chances of making an informed decision, which increases the likelihood that the decision will be a correct one.

"We" is the FRC community.

How to utilize the championship event and experience to fulfill the goals of USFIRST is up to USFIRST. They know better than anyone what they are able to do. If we want to help fulfill those goals with the methodology they set out and how is up to us.