[Ian Mackenzie]

As another thought, if FIRST is determined to some sort of balancing, perhaps there could be a compromise. Instead of splitting teams into three tiers and having each alliance be one robot from each tier, there could be a looser restriction that every alliance have robots from at least two different tiers (or, equivalently, that no alliance may have three robots from the same tier). This would make it possible for every team to play with and against every other team, but still prevent situations like 3 veterans vs. 3 rookies.

More drastically, the restriction on what teams can be on any one alliance could be dropped, but a restriction could be added that the two alliances be balanced relative to one another - so one could have 3 veterans vs. 3 veterans or 3 rookies vs. 3 rookies, but not 3 veterans vs. 3 rookies.

Actually, on second thought, while that might get some really exciting matches with 6 great robots, there would also be some pretty boring matches with 6 mediocre robots. I still like a completely random schedule, with the emphasis being on reducing duplication (so one team doesn't see any other team more than a couple times) instead of trying to artificially balance matches, and trusting that with enough matches and enough variety in partners and opponents, things will average out.