Definitely the IR restrictions. Some of us are pretty innovative...I'm sure the Mars rovers get encoded packets, so why can't we send them?
I imagine they are trying to keep the code from needing to be too complex. New teams have difficulty getting commands from the IR board, let alone decoding packets.
But still, I hope this restriction, along with the 80" rule, are lifted at IRI. By then, no team will need them, though...
JBot