I'm curious as to the durability of one continuous flap of vinyl vs. 5 separate flaps. The former option would certainly have been better for low bar teams, even if the hanging pipe had to go.
The top of your robot is the logical place to put cameras, LEDs, ball shooting mechanism cables, and other delicate things that teams generally want to protect (and in most cases, had planned to protect by ensuring the hanging pipe hit something else first). Maybe it won't be that bad, but I would not be surprised if someone were to be screwed by this over the weekend...
It could be worse. They could be replacing the portcullis:
