I don't think its that other items have become less popular I just think that buttons have become sort of a common denominator. Any team that is capable of creating a couple hundred buttons seems to make them. Its a good thing to in my opinion, almost like playing cards for every FIRST team. I still have my massive chain of buttons from my first nationals. It just blew me away and i'll probably never throw them out. So as I was saying, there are still lots of unique items. They're just hidden behind a sea of buttons.
Anothe reason perhaps has to do with the popularity of FIRST. Almost everything costs more than a button to make. With so many people attending competitions now and so many people wanting the giveaway(who doesn't love free stuff!) that teams have to give something away thats cheap and easy. I know my team has buttons always(we bought something like 5000 two years ago with just our logo on it at a really cheap per piece price) but that to people that are really interested and to other teams we're maybe tyring to get picked by(great diplomacy method
) we give the good stuff to. When somebody picks up and uses a 694 wrench they think, yeah that team is pretty is cool.
