[Billfred]

This season, 1618 fielded what was effectively a box on wheels. Not on purpose, mind you, it just happened that way. We made 8th alliance captain at Palmetto, in no small part thanks to that same luck your team had. (Being allied with 1251 three times, Metal-In-Motion twice, and appearances with 34 and 1102 all helped things a bit.)

However, we got lucky. Even though we were a particularly good box on wheels, it is particularly rare for a box on wheels to get picked. I remember 1028 getting picked as the #1 alliance's second pick in 2006 at Palmetto, but that's about it. If your regional is particularly small, you may get lucky and get picked by being one of the last robots standing--but having some reliable method of scoring is simply the more likely method of getting picked.

You can always take your robot with a poor manipulator and use it as a box on wheels--but that box on wheels won't do you any good if your alliance partners need a robot with even a modest degree of offense. Even the higher-end defensive robots of 2006, such as 195 and 1902, had means of scoring.