[Team34Guy]

As far as eliminating Bag day goes....I'm sure there are a few benefits that will allow some teams to perform better. Eliminating a hard deadline that the students/mentors have to adhere to would be extremely detrimental and would outweigh the aforementioned benefits. Part of the lessons we teach these students is that they will have to deal with deadlines and restrictions in the real world, eliminating bag and tag is counterproductive to that lesson. I've been with Team 34 for about six years now and we've had to re-vamp our team because one of our key mentors left to pursue other endeavors. So rookie teams (or teams with just 2-3 years) aren't the only ones vulnerable. Funding and mentor burnout has to be addressed by every team. I'm glad this thread was started, its good to know that others are thinking about the same issues that most of us are dealing with.
I don't know what FRC could do to alleviate some of these issues, but maybe trying to recruit more mentors nationwide... I know CD has helped me so much by being a sounding board for so many FRC issues, maybe if there were more networking possibilities between teams/mentors, help could be given to these struggling teams.