[sgreco]

Cory, I agree with you too.

I don't honestly think trying to even the playing field is worth trying to do. The dominant veteran teams willl always be good. There are certain things veteran teams always do. For example,
A veteran team is much less likely to come into a match with a broken robot because they will build it robustly. (this will not change no matter what the game).
Veteran teams will finish early and get a lot of crucial practice time. (again this is something that will not change year to year).
Veteran teams will also generally pick a better design to play the game in general due to experience in designing and likely better prototyping.(However even the playing field is, certain design are always better than others and teams like 1114, 217, 111, 254, 67, 148, 330 etc are more likely to pick these designs.)
One things I've noiced is that veteran teams have many small ways to save weight. In 2007, I saw a rookie and a veteran weigh in, they both weighed just under 110, their claws were the same and so were their drivetrain, but the veteran had weight for a mainipulator and the rookie didn't.(this is another thing that will never change is that veterans will be more adept at finding ways to make weight for alll the subsystems they want and not compromise performance in any specific areas.

These are just some realities, the teams that are dominant will always be dominant no matter what.

Adding low friction didn't really help becuase many inexperienced teams were slipping around while experianced teams used very effective traction controls. (I'm not saying rookie teams aren't capable, they just aren't all as likely to make a good design as a most veterans are).