Alright, allow me to toss out a completely unrelated idea for 2006, and how it somewhat parallels the real world.
Suppose, when teams arrive at the Magnolia Regional on Friday, their match listings looked something like this:
MATCH 1 0930
RED: 9999, ????, ????
BLUE: 8888, ????, ????
Each of the remaining matches was done the same way, with each time being listed explicitly N times. At this point, those teams will be required to approach two other teams to join their alliance for that match, with some limit on the number of matches a team can play during the regional.
I relate it to the real world like this: Teams 9999 and 8888 are trying to make a product (more points than the other alliance). In order to meet that objective, they're going to have to recruit some outside suppliers (two more teams per alliance) to get their goods (additional point-scoring ability) in order to ensure success.
Now, there would be weaknesses to this--for starters, it adds another layer of madness to an already mad regional. And you'd have to get all these newly-formed alliances into the software pretty quickly (I suppose you'd have a person at the pit admin table entering this information from a team representative--I'd say the person with the mentor badge, but that's me.)
Then there's the issue of three teams always picking each other. You could always put the standard argument of "FIRST isn't fair" here, but it would still get mildly boring after a while. At this point, you'd limit teams acting as the picker (the team listed on the printout) to picking the same team no more than, say, twice at a regional. (The number can change, depending on size.)
Finally, the issue of the team that doesn't pick in time. This one I haven't figured out yet. If you were to force them to go out with one or two robots, you would all but ensure their alliance's failure, but then one or two teams couldn't play a match (as nobody filled those slots, and the capacity shrunk accordingly). I suppose it would involve a forced drafting of teams that still had open slots left. Undesirable, definitely, but the only way around it.
The "dance card" setup is a little crazy*, but it would add another layer of strategy to competitions, IMHO. Thoughts?
*Then again, some folks might argue that building a robot in six weeks is a little crazy. 