[meaubry]

The only reason that this issue even matters is because of tie breakers in seeding. Teams with the same number of wins are then ranked by the points derived by the formula that promotes scoring for the opponent, once the win/loss has been determined.
Which is often by the end of the auton period or the end of the next period - leaving the final period when everyone can score to decide what they will do.
I don't advocate scoring for the opponent - because I think thats demeaning and not worth upsetting the opponents feelings, but I do realize and understand why others may feel differently about this - and that is their choice.
What could have been done to eliminate this entire issue, is when they decided to go back to seeding using this method (it wasn't always like this), they could have used a formula that didn't encourage this kind of behaviour.
The problem with that is, there are times when point differential isn't the issue - its more a problem of what attributes the alliance has, and the number of robots that are working and play in the match.
On top of the problem with unbalanced alliances, often their are 3 team alliances, where 1 or 2 teams can carry the 3rd team to victory regardless of the score for either team. Scoring teams provide the next level of seeding for everyone in the alliance - even if some of them cannot score at all. This doesn't seem like a good way to determine which teams should be seeded above others - to me. Teams playing great defense don't get extra points for the team, but they do keep the score down (which is opposite of what the next level of seeding is based on). Something is wrong with this concept.
Using score differential as the next level tie breaker in seeding implies that the teams CAN score, but often that is NOT the case. 3 Defensive teams can win matches by outnumbering the scoring teams that have little or no help - 7 to 9, 8 to 10, whatever. Low scores with little point differential. The teams playing defense cannot afford to let the other team score for them and as the match progresses the teams are too busy trying to get enough of their own points, let alone worry about scoring for the other team.
I think if you are going to use the points for wins method to determine seeding, the second tier for ranking is going to be very difficult to determine and make it so everyone is going to be happy - perhaps just draw straws at the time of the alliance selection process would suffice and drop the formula scoring differential altogether as the tie breaker. All teams with 0 losses draw straws to determine which is higher ranked for alliance selection, then those with 1 loss, and on and on until the top 12 are determined - after all, beyond the top 12 seeding doesn't much matter.