So here's a notion I had the other day, one that might not be perfect. (dons asbestos underwear)
On Saturday, you tend to draw the largest crowds at regionals. In the afternoon, you also get some of the more exciting matches of a regional. But what about the morning?
Imagine, if you will, that the match list for Saturday wasn't posted until Saturday, like it's done on the other two days. But before the list goes out, the scoring software applies a little black magic to the list to organize the six teams in each match according to their seed. The six teams in a match wouldn't change (that'd be a scheduling nightmare), just possibly their affiliations within the match. So if we've got seeds number 2, 9, 11, 25, 30, and 42 in a match, it would be organized 2/11/30 versus 9/25/42.
This system isn't perfect--247 and 1251 were both pretty low seeds at Palmetto, and they're both wearing gold now--but it might help prevent a total squashing, which (all fairness debates aside) just isn't as interesting to watch.
EDIT: And another idea in a completely different vein, inspired by Rick TYler's post on page 1:
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Originally Posted by Rick TYler
8. Instead of doing alliance selection as they now, allow the top seeded teams to bid on partners using virtual bucks. Give each team $100 virtual dollars and have a silent auction for alliance partners. Team numbers and a picture of their robot are posted on a wall (or other conveniently flat surface) and the top-seeded teams then enter their bids on a bidding computer. A top-seeded team (alliance captain) on which other teams have bid can choose to allow themselves to be "sold" or not. If they choose not to accept the high bidder, they are "off the market" and will be an alliance captain. The high bidder gets their bucks back and can rebid them. Maybe this is done in real-time from eight bidding computers and the current bid amounts are displayed on the big screen. I know this seems complicated, but I want to noodle on it a bit. I like the games theory aspect, and it would introduce teams to a lot of modern mathematical theory they don't normally see in FIRST -- but it needs work. I promise to post a more fully-developed version later.
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So imagine if we took this a step further. The Top 8 would be prohibited from picking each other, which I'm normally in favor of allowing, but that would be too painful here. Each alliance captain would have X number of points with which to purchase their alliance partners. Note that I didn't specify how many--alliances in eliminations would not be limited in size, at least in theory. You could just bid on two great partners and hope nobody breaks, or maybe have four or five mid-card robots that you could switch between to suit your strategy.
What this doesn't include is some means for a team to decline (say, their robot's broken beyond hope of repair in time)--I assume you'd just notify the captains that they're out.