I don't have much to add to this discussion, partly because this is my first year being involved with FIRST/FRC. My team went to World Championships for the first time ever (off the wait list, we didn't win a regional) and we had fun and many students were inspired.
When I first heard about this news my gut reaction was "but there needs to be a winner if you're going to call it championships!" I, because I am new, assumed that this was always the case.
I only recently discovered a
thread on CD talking about the eligibility changes in 2005, and in so doing realized that it wasn't always this way. That, in fact, it wasn't always about having a winner at all. I found that thread to be a fascinating discussion especially given the climate now.
It seems to me that the new generation of FIRSTers, myself included, puts a high emphasis on competing, winning, and declaring a winner, and assumed it was simply always so. That the Championships belongs to the winners. When, in fact, it wasn't, and the
exact opposite was once true.