[yoshibrock]

<G31> BALL RETURN and RETURN BARS Protection - ROBOTS may not contact the BALL RETURN or the RETURN BARS (black tape). Violation: PENALTY for inadvertent contact; plus a RED CARD for obviously intentional contact or damaging contact.

This means that you can't touch the rails AT ALL or you risk a red card. Even if you somehow manage to touch only the ball, you risk incurring <G45> like you said. In my opinion, the game creators don't want anyone even close to messing with the ball return. I wouldn't make it your main strategy.

EDIT: I just realized that I may have misread your post. You can ignore what I said about touching the rails. If I understand you correctly, you want to redirect the ball after it falls from the ball return. My interpretation of <G45> as well as the carrying rule lead me to the conclusion that it would be extremely risky to build some sort of active mechanism to control the balls that fall from the rails. We're planning to build a cover for our robot that would deflect the balls inadvertantly, but not purposefully. But hey, it might be something to bring up in the Q&A