Jason, you are echo'ing a ton of thoughts that have been going through my head recently as well. I have only been a mentor for 3 years (2 rookie teams and one 2nd year for the first team I mentored). I find it interesting to see how many "veteran" teams appear to struggle nearly as much as the rookie teams - I was originally thinking this was a rookie phenomenon (and maybe it is more of an issue still). The rookie team I am helping this year had absolutely ZERO resources by the time kick-off occured. The team is completely supported by grants - which the money for those did not come in until basically the week before kickoff. We had no material supplies, no tools, and only 2 of us 3 mentors had any experience with FIRST at all. The team has literally been together for 6 weeks (maybe 7 total). I expect there are other teams that are in the same boat.
Additionally, we are Week1 competition team. While the withholding allowance certainly helps - it's not going to be nearly as beneficial to our team as to most. I see that some teams also meet quite often and spend tons and tons of hours building, designing, marketing, etc. We did not have that option. So, in the end, we had probably 3 weeks or so to really do anything more useful than some brainstorming sessions and watching other teams videos on prototypes we were thinking about (and even that was a struggle since the school does not allow for surfing the web). Teaching and mentoring the students on most things has been very limited (basic on the job training) and I have been seriously concerned about how much the kids are really getting out of the program and how much desire they are building to even want to come back next year. There are only so many pep talks you can give and promises of how cool it will be at the competition (let alone the encouragement to work longer, harder, faster, and more efficiently).
Schools really seem to struggle with the idea of diving into this program - and I can see why. Making it a viable long term program for a school is of utmost priority to them - yet it's so difficult and nebulous on how to do just that. Having a larger build season, or some of the other ideas you mentioned may be the ticket. I'm not sure what needs to be done but hopefully some changes will come soon that will make it easier for everyone involved.
Anyway - I could go on and on - so I'll just stop here. At least I am able to vent.
