My 2 cents...
I would lose confidence in FIRST management if they moved away from IFI. Technically speaking, we could not be where we are today without IFI. I can think of
zero reason to move away from IFI's hardware. Their Spike and Victor are considered top of the line components in the robotics arena. From my experience Zigbee isn't a good choice, 802.11 seems like overkill. I bet the new change looks something like this:
- IFI creates the new OI and RC. Victors and Spikes are unchanged.
- OI includes USB support.
- RC includes a Microchip micro and some type of fast user processor, maybe even a DSP offering oodles of memory.