Also note that teams with great consistency are VERY rare.
Here is a graph I made during a rather heated thread where someone was complaining about the existence of the mythical "first place every year" team.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/at...4&d=1162868157
Notice how a given bracket of performers in one year spread out ALL OVER the performance distribution in the following year. There is SOME correlation: teams that came towards the very bottom in 2005 tended to not win in 2006 (but could still get as high as top 20%). Teams that did very well in 2005 tended to not come dead last in 2006. But that was it. If you placed in the top 10% of 2005 robots, you could've ended up anywhere from first place to top 80% in 2006. There is a great deal of mobility in FIRST.
Note that if there was great consistency from year to year, this graph would be a line from the bottom left corner to the top right corner.
It will be very interesting to make another graph like this one comparing 2005 and 2007. Since both games are 'manipulator' years, then there should be more consistency.