Personally, I'm starting to warm to the idea of not going to the nationals at all. It may be that I'm simply getting bored after five consecutive years of Florida trips, but regionals have several distinct advantages. Instead of worrying about whether you're going to qualify for nationals, you could choose instead to go to a far-away regional and make that your big trip for the year. Besides, regionals have far better visibility to the field, you can get a couple more matches, the pits are closer to the field, and I think the smaller number of people makes for a nicer atmosphere. If a lot of teams adopted this strategy, a secondary benefit would be that regionals would become a little more diverse, with more teams from out of state, province, or country.
-Ian Mackenzie
Woburn Robotics
http://www.team188.com