[Kevin Sevcik]

I'm going to opine that the GDC doesn't want teams sandbagging alliance partners by stealing their ropes, nor do they want teams sandbagging later teams by permanently replacing the FIELD ROPES with 8 feet of dental floss.

3.8 says teams "can expect default FIELD ROPES to be installed". That section wouldn't say that if there was an expectation of random team supplied ropes being installed.

So yes, I fully expect the GDC to tell you that you do, in fact, have to remove your custom rope from the arena at the end of the match. It'll probably be an edit to 4.2 Match Setup, noting that the arena will be cleared of robots, ropes, and operator consoles. I expect they'll be a bit grumpy about having to tell you not to handicap other teams, break the game, and steal parts of the arena.

EDIT: I feel like I should note that the bit about being allowed to remove your custom ROPE was obviously put in as an option to simplify robot removal. You can remove your robot+rope assembly from the field instead of removing your robot from the field and then removing your rope. The "may" in there was allowing the removal of the rope before disentangling the robot. Not making the rope removal optional.