[Jared Russell]

I could not care less what the theme of the game is. A popular sport, excavating moon rocks, medieval times, waste management, or no theme at all...it's all the same to me.

What I do care about is that the game and engineering challenge are exciting and inspiring to watch and for teams of all levels to participate in. This is almost entirely independent of the theme - you can give any game mechanic a cute name that fits a given motif ("moon rocks", "litter", etc.)

Given that FIRST wants to reach as broad an audience as possible, it seems to me a reasonable decision for them to add a theme on top of a well-designed game challenge in order to appeal to other types of people. I only have so much energy for complaining every year, so I'd much rather save mine for things that matter.