[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by dirtbikerxz

Please excuse my ignorance, no arrogance meant here at all, but was building a 6 or so wheel pneumatic (west coast) drive train that could perform decently well really that complicated? (Again no arrogance here, just curious)

Surprisingly, yes. There were several issues with it this year.

• The "standard" WCD 16 tooth sprocket was simply not adequate to take the hard loads of the FRC field. Dozens of teams dealt with sprocket failure all season trying to cope with the extra forces involved.
• Leaving no gaps in the drivetrain to prevent getting stuck on the rough terrain or moat while traversing slowly required attention to design details and usually more than six wheels. You could get a running start and avoid these issues most of the time, but not always.
• In some cases, you could improperly load the old lower load 1/2" hex bearings or 1/2" hex shafts of weaker material.
• Building a custom drivetrain at all is out of the reach of a large number of FRC teams; at least building one that is better than a commercial product. Vex has made this very easy in the last few years though.