As a volunteer I appreciate referees' erring on the side of caution, by taking steps to discourage gameplay that might result in someone (or some critical equipment) being hit by a flying trackball. I do agree those steps should be the same at all events.
As a mentor whose team built a catapult robot this year, I appreciated referees at both of our events who clarified the way they would be calling this during Thursday practice rounds. We were warned about potential <S1> penalties the first time that our poor aim sent a trackball over the side in St. Louis. Two weeks later during Thursday practice at Boilermaker, we were advised that a trackball clearing the overpass between the uprights, but landing out of bounds, would not be scored as a hurdle. This advice was confirmed by an
official Q&A response a few days later, but the timely warning we got kept us from repeating the mistake on Friday or Saturday.
Looking at it from either perspective, the referees I've seen have made the right call when balls left the track.
__________________
Richard Wallace
Mentor since 2011 for FRC 3620 Average Joes (St. Joseph, Michigan)
Mentor 2002-10 for FRC 931 Perpetual Chaos (St. Louis, Missouri)
since 2003
I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.
(Cosmic Religion : With Other Opinions and Aphorisms (1931) by Albert Einstein, p. 97)