I probably should have posted this sooner, but these are my suggestions for improving the officiating based -solely- on what I saw at SVR. If the officiating elsewhere fixes these problems or creates new ones, I don't know enough about them.
-Yes, G22 (crossing a line backwards) is written clearly, and yes, it was enforced, as far as I could tell, perfectly. However, it was still deciding far too many games, and most of the time, the punishment did not fit the crime. Nearly all sports have rules that are clear on the books, but not enforced (examples off top of head: MLB-tagging 2nd on a DP, NBA-traveling, NFL-holding, NHL-everything, really). Why can't G22 be the same way? If you turn around and drive across a line to get a trackball or something, that should be a penalty. But when there's no advantage gained, there shouldn't be a penalty.
-As for G42 (interfering with a hurdler), though, I have to say that I don't think the rule was being enforced as written. It only bans "overt, blatant, or agressive contact"-at SVR, they were calling
everything; accidental bumps, brushes as a robot went past, everything. I'm sure the call to apply the rule like that came from somewhere, but I disagree with it and I think those kinds of calls did not match with the spirit of the game.
-On the flip side, G41 (the "bump to pass" rule) was not being called nearly often enough. Several times during the competition I urged our drive team to block, block
more, because even though they were clearly trying the refs were not even counting off six seconds. I saw only a handful of counts (the slow flag waving) during the competition, and I don't think an actual penalty was given even once. An area which I believe the refs should especially focus on is blocking in front of a line so that an opposing robot crosses the line and is then blocked, so they have nowhere to go. I heard it mentioned during the drivers meeting that drivers should bump and wait, but this was never called or counted off; I noted several occasions where this caused G22 penalties on the non-blocking team. Unforunately I can't find any videos of this, or I would provide an example...
-I don't know all the facts on this, so I am cautious in stating this, but a member of 254 stated here that they informed the referees of their incorrect interpretation of G14 (scoring of bonus points) before the final match, which was overturned because of same. If this is true, it would indicate some kind of communication problem among the referees, which I hope can be resolved.
So I don't seem overly pessimistic, I will now provide an equal number of praises:
-I didn't spend too much time in the pits, but from what I heard the inspectors did a great job, although I must question their wisdom in allowing our robot to take the field with a poof ball duct-taped to our arm
-Contrary to reports from other regionals, I never noticed any scoring problems; the one I did see was, I believe, corrected in the final score.
-The referees had to spend three whole days constantly repairing the field (sometimes after every match!), and somehow they managed to keep it together the whole time
-The referees did a good job enforcing some of the less commonly applied rules, such as G47 (team members in the alliance area), G39 (robot entanglement), etc.
Also, as for the "referee test", I am still curious as to why it has not been relased. I believe the stated reason was so to not confuse the teams, but I don't think that's good enough. Either whoever created it thinks we're not smart enough to see information in two different ways, or (much worse) the test does not match up with the actual rules. If there is another reason, or I am misinterpreting the original one, I would love to hear it.