[The other Gabe]

The first reason for why alliances made are not always as good as they should be is bad scouting. whether it's because the team is biased, they don't have enough people to scout well, or their scouts just aren't accurate, this can cause them to create a poor alliance (or neglect to pick good robots... cough cough my team at DCMP the last two years cough cough)

as for gameplay at higher levels, not every team has the resources to create a robot competitive at the highest levels. another issue can be mis-analyzing parts of the game- members of my team, including myself, though that the totes would fall flat from the feeder of their own volition, and therefore didnt make any sort of ramp. this forced us at our first divisional to quickly change to landfill, which was quite an adjustment for the drive team. many other teams made similar mistakes, and later fixed their bots with ramps, full redesigns, etc.

also, to add onto andrew schriebner, 2 of the best PNW feeder bots this year, 955 and 4450, had first divisionals that were... less than stellar compared to their level of play at the end of the year. their strategies also changed completely; in playoffs, 955 was a capper, and 4450 was a landfill bot in their first competitions. both teams added ramps and became very good. nearly every bot from my division that made it to worlds this year improved an extent, but those two were the most radical changes.