[sanddrag]

I will agree that the reduction in registration fee makes the initial fund raising hurdle much more achievable for many teams. A lot of teams don't try to compete well, they just try to compete period. They will scavenge and re-use whatever they have an not buy a single piece more. This change benefits them.

Another way to look at this change is that it's somewhat of a payment deferment plan. Instead of having to pay $6000 to FIRST by the beginning of December, you can afford to be a little slower about your fund raising efforts, and take another month or so to get the extra thousand (to buy the things that didn't come with it).

It's not all bad.