[EricH]

I'm with you, Cory. Sure, some teams came out and did well that normally don't. Happens every year, though.

With the 12 teams on Einstein, one was a rookie. You might argue that that means the field was leveled. No, it doesn't. Said rookie was an FTC veteran who knew the process and had mentor teams from all over their area during their transition. Other rookies with similar situations also did well. (Plus the standard disclaimer that it takes a few years to build up veteran status...)

Narrow the gap/level the playing field? No. If you want to do that, tell us "fit it in the box, you can't use x, y, and z, and oh, don't forget that there are three types of floor and 2 scoring objects to deal with, now get the robot out the door in 6 weeks". The more options you have, the more challenge you have--and a low-resource team can determine what they can and can't do and do what they can just as fast and as well as a veteran who can do more, but has a harder time deciding what to do because they have the extra freedom.