[Meredith Rice]

In my opinion, I would hate for the qualification to be based on that.
(That being a possibility that George1083 just suggested:
1). Any team who played on an alliance that went to the Semifinals at any event. (This way you can't qualify just by being picked. You have to earn it with success in the elimination matches.)

I dont mean to shy away from the competativeness of FIRST, but imagine how many teams would be crushed when they are booted out of nats in the quarterfinals of their regionals.
I personally like the current set up beucase it achieves the goal of limiting the size of the event but allows for those competative teams that did win regionals or who received awards for their other merits to go to nats. I think where competativeness has increased is at the regional level. I know for the Firebirds, we will do everything in our power to raise funds for next year's nats even though we are an odd team, and we will be very competative at our regional so that we can attend. I think that this level of competativeness is good because it only gives more teams the opportunity to compete at nats, but does not take away other teams' opportunity to as well.