[dlavery]

One observation: we have seen many times in past years that the team's opinions regarding elements of the competitions can change significantly over the course of the build season and into the competition season. As we all get more experience with the new elements and the benefits and limitations of such, we get a better understanding of how well they fit our needs.

Let me suggest that exactly the same thing is going to happen with the simiplified rules. The intent of the rule-writers was to make all our lives a lot easier in both the definition and understanding of the rules, and their implementation. Right now it is still way too early to know, with real experiential knowledge and hard data, if this effort is going to be successful or not. The simplified rules are out there. They are not going to be re-written for this year. We all have to work with them, and the stated intent behind them, and do our best. I would urge everyone to just hang on and see how things work out.

Note that I am NOT saying that this is an unreasonable question to ask. The simplified rules are one of the specific "experiments" being monitored this year. You will see formal requests for feedback on this (and other topics) later this year from FIRST. I have a sneaking suspicion that the answers some people give now may change over the next several weeks (in both directions). This question will, and should, be asked. My only point is that right now it is too early to know the answer.

-dave