[Lil' Lavery]

While I agree there is most definitely an "Arms Race" occuring in FIRST's drivetrains (as well as just about every aspect of the robot, more on that later), I think the game becoming more defensive is a myth (again, more on this later).
I believe the drivetrain escalation can be traced to a single moment, or rather a single game, in FIRST history. 2002, Zone Zeal. While certain factors emerged earlier, especially with the creation of alliances in 1999, 2002 began the un-reversable development of this "arms race". Zone Zeal was a game based almost entirely on [mobile] goal procurement, control, and placment (tasks heavily dependent on the drive). Not surprisingly, the fastest and strongest bots accounted for a majority of the victories. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the legendary drivetrain of Team Hammond that year. 71 produced what is widely regarded as the strongest drivetrain in FIRST history (capable of towing itself, 3 quite heavy mobile goals, and multiple opposing robots on it's slow march across the field), and it capped it's domination with a win at the 2002 Nationals. Not surprisingly, we also saw the first backlash aginst power in 2002, as FIRST also saw the creation of it's first holonomic drive. 857's killough drive made monumental splashes in the FIRST community in the years to come, in part, leading to the massive amount of Mecanum drives revealed for this years game.
The arms race is without a doubt here, but more defensive games, I'd couldn't disagree more. Early in the build season, I decided to drag up some old Torroid Terror (1997) tapes to watch the last game using inner tubes. What I saw was a very defensive game (for the most part), with only a very few elite teams who could produce significant offense. Even the human players got in on the defensive action, as they threw tubes to try and knock tubes out of opposing robot's graspers. It was especially surprising considering the game was 1v1v1, so placing a defensive commitment on one team, allowed the other to pretty much have a free chance to score...but it didn't matter, defense was common. In 1998 there was even a match where the placebo won (each team started with some balls in the goals. The two competiting bots descored eachothers, and never scored, leaving the placebo's starting points enough to win the match). The same can be said for even earlier FIRST games as well. In 1993, one bot would detach what was essentially a wall that would sit in front of the goal. That factor has applied to every game in FIRST (aside of the 4v0 2001 game). What has happened was the creation of alliances in 1999, and the change to 3-team alliances in 2005. Both of these allowed for the evolution and creation of "niche" bots. These "niche" bots fill very specialized and specific roles within alliances, and defense is one of those such roles. During the pre-alliance era, it was impossible to win a match on defense alone (aside of 1998, where each alliance started with 6 points from balls located in the troughs at the beginning of the match), but now an individual team within an alliance can focus on defense and let other bots do the scoring. Games are no more defensive than ever, teams are just being more physical.
I don't see this drivetrain race as a bad thing, in fact I enjoy it. It's not unique to the drives either. Teams are making more complex turrets with greater degrees of rotation, longer arms with more joints, more efficient end-effectors, lighter and lighter components, and more advanced coding based in greater sensor input than ever before. FIRST is growing in terms of what teams can do, and the amount of teams. As the amount of teams grow, and the amount of experience expands, innovation and improvement become essential to be competitive. And none of this "arms race" stifles innovation. Just check out 1857's "spine" manipulator.
I agree that we probably get a few too many motors in the Kit of Parts (I think 11-12 should be more than any team needs). 116 is only using 6 motors this year, and 4 of the so-called "powerful" motors are sitting in our shop while the robot is on it's journey to Richmond.