[miketwalker]

I strongly believe the Championship will soon become a thing of the past. The reason being is that in the past the backbone of FIRST was that EVERYBODY could go to the Championship. Most people haven't been around to remember when they preached that (including myself) but it was the heart of FIRST. To tell a team they can't go because of these new requirements has pushed teams to quit doing FIRST for a few years just so they can work with this new tier system and come back and eventually get to go to the Championship. Many teams don't want to just compete at regionals and therefore won't bother building a robot. I think this problem will only escalate as they make it harder to get into the Championship and stray further and further away from that heart of FIRST that everyone deserves to go... and I think we'll see many teams start to be offended by the rule changes until they have to find something else to do.