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The apparent lack of changes to the points system is upsetting, since then the choice between districts and events also requires planners to factor in how much they want to shift the way awards are valued at events. It seems like what are extremely important issues to at least me (devaluing of Chairman's and EI awards with respect to qualifying, practically no reward for winning FIRST's most important awards, other issues that have been beaten to death) remain unchanged here, so I guess for the intents and purposes of state competition, the state events shift more toward "the best robots and oh here's this other award stuff too".
I was really hoping at least as many points as the winning alliance for Chairman's / EI, or culture changing awards not being completely irrelevant for qualifications. I mean you get what you celebrate, right?
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I will start this post with stating that I agree with you that I think the points for the culture changing awards should be 5, just like the tech awards.
However, it is a philosophical argument only. The fact is that 95% of chairman's award capable teams would have qualified under the FiM district point system anyway. In Michigan, all 7 teams easily qualified for the state championship.
In addition (this one will raise some eyebrows), we are trying to change the culture. In order to do that we need to get the random person's attention. Who is going to do that better? A Chairman's award winner like team 27, 33, or 1114 or some team who puts so much energy on the chairman's award that they forget that they have to compete with a robot? Seriously, a chairman's team is well rounded. Well rounded! To me, that means they should be an example in every aspect, not just the ones judged in the chairman's judging room.
Just like it is not all about the robots, it is not all about winning the Chairman's Award.
Paul