Thank you for finally admitting it on paper - FIRST loves them their offense and isn't afraid to modify the rules to favor it. Well, that's certainly their prerogative. Sorry, all you teams who didn't have the resources to build capable arms but still had the means to develop good enough drivetrains to employ creative, non-damaging defensive strategies - your job just became that much tougher. If ya can't live up in the clouds with the big boys, you might as well just stay out of their way.
Regarding the change to G18, I would only hope this applies if you are pushing the robot toward the goal. If you succeed in getting in between the robot and the goal and you push them outward, you shouldn't have to worry about any repercussions - how the heck can you claim that the pushing robot is descoring tetras they aren't even facing? Now, if you're pushing a capping robot toward the goal from behind, you were probably too slow in executing your defense, and you've already lost the battle. Go do something else.
As far as the *new and improved* 10-point safety penalty goes, I think it falls into the same category as the generic *overaggressiveness* penalty tacked onto G25. Meaning I don't think it's made the lives of refs, announcers, kids, and mentors trying to understand what's legal and what isn't any easier. The change also removed the requirement of mandatory disablement of robots who demonstrate unsafe activity. Now they *may* be disabled at a refs' discretion. Is that a safer approach to take, or simply one that is more offense-friendly?
It remains to be seen if the refs become any more consistent across the board. You can change the rules all you want, but if you don't effectively communicate a single, consistent direction on how to interpret them correctly, then you're still going to see the same old same old. Let's see what happens this week....