[JesseK]

This is all pure speculation, but it seems fairly logical to me:

I would assume that the move away from the IFI controller isn't simply a move away from IFI, it's a move away from the PIC 18F series of microcontrollers. I programmed an 18F452C in college, using assembly, and I promise you that it has multiple limitations many modern-day programmers would rather not deal with -- like no nesting, no recursion, and procedure/spaghetti-based coding practices. These are all based upon constructs that directly contradict what students and new mentors are taught in college about OOP, which is where high-level programming is these days. You also have to come up with extremely complex algorithms to have any optimised code currently, and it's not exactly easy to teach students Calc.-3/Linear Algebra concepts to a high school student who hasn't been through Algebra 2.

On top of that, some people may have missed the announcement of a NASA robotics platform that was released. While I have yet to review this platform myself it does seem like an easier way for NASA to use this robotics program to help create useful ideas/solutions while teaching the younger generation in the process. It makes sense that FIRST would move to a controller that has the capability to run this platform -- after all, NASA is a big funder of FIRST just like IFI.

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If you were old enough to understand it, you might remember way back in the late 90's when the cable companies entered the internet arena. The phone companies were all in a panic and everyone was worried about a new standard of internet coming of age. Well in all actuality all it did was bring about competition to the phone companies since they were keeping the high-speed internet lines at equally high prices -- at which point the consumer was getting screwed. Cable changed all of that, and look -- we're about to be able to get 25Mbps here in DC, something that was unfathomable in the late 90's.

Competition is good, let's hope IFI can step up.