I think this is the BEST scoring system I've seen in the last 5 years. It's the first year where the game hasn't changed between the qualification rounds and finals. To better understand what I like about this year's game I think it's important to discuss things I didn't like about previous year's games. Let's just forget about 2001 for the purposes of this discussion.
Last year (2003) was a step in the right direction, where the goal in winning in the eliminations was the same as qualifications. The only down side was the "win the first match and then score zero in the second" strategy. While very effective, it was pretty confusing for most spectators. It also pretty much sealed your fate in the first match.
In 2002 the game changed dramatically between the qualification rounds and elimination round. The machines that seemed to seed well had a one goal, lots of balls strategy. The machines that seemed to win tournaments were either two goal or three goal machines. Most of the finals matches came down to who could control all three goals. This three-goal strategy was never implemented in the qualification rounds by teams trying to seed well. I felt that 2000 had a similar issue, but wasn't as pronounced as in 2002.
I like playing for two wins in the finals. When designing a robot I don't want to have to choose between trying to seed well or win tournaments. This year's scoring system achieves these two goals effectively. A machine that wins all of their matches will certainly seed well and will likely do quite well in the finals.
Now to discuss why I like the system FIRST is using to differentiate between teams with equal win/loss/tie records. I also like an offensively focused game. By then sorting teams based on who's opponents had the highest score you discourage defensive strategies. It also has the effect of rating the quality of opponent you faced.
As mentioned before, the penalties can hurt your opponent more than yourself (if they had a clear victory anyway) but if the penalties change who wins I can't see giving a team more "points" than they scored.
For the reasons mentioned above I think this is the best seeding/elimination system yet. The game's a pretty good one too.
