Marc,
That is exactly the way the current system works for those of us that utilize the Withholding Allowance. The only thing this proposal changes is making the Withholding Allowance the whole robot instead of just 65 lbs. All teams competing at your Week 1 event are on a level playing field with each other and so are the teams competing at my Week 5 event. The fact that the two playing fields are not level with each other doesn't really matter does it?
I don't think I ever really addressed the initial proposal so I will do so here. I disagree with the statement that more would be learned by extending the build season (which is essentially what you are proposing). I am a strong believer in
Parkinson's Law. Will team's spend more time prototyping if they have more time to build the robot? Maybe. Will this result in "better" robots? Maybe. Do "better" robots change anything? I don't think that they do.
I contend that there is an equal, if not greater, amount to be learned by working within the given time constraints.