[Madison]

I think you may be misinterpreting what Jessica is saying. . .

While what you said about teamsw fighting for points might be true, this new criteria for qualification presents a number of dilemmas for teams and judges alike.

For example, if a team that's been around since 1992, and is therefore already qualified for Nationals, should win a regional, they become doubly qualified. By winning a regional while already knowing they were guaranteed a spot, are they be viewed as being ungracious? If things are so arranged that only a winning team gets qualified, and not, say, the highest placing team not ALREADY going to Nationals, several veteran teams are faced with the possibility of monopolizing spots on the list of the automatically qualified.

Similarly, a judge might be biased with respect to veteran teams because of the new significance of regional awards. Will they still award a veteran, Nationally qualified team with an award that might otherwise get a lesser known, or rookie, team in? Conversely, will they lay favor with newer teams to give them a chance at going to Nationals and unfairly ignore the achievements of older teams?

The points system is about the only thing with this new qualification process that makes sense. . . what doesn't make sense is why it's all based on last year's performance. But, anything performance based is already light year's ahead of the rest of the qualifying criteria.