Incredible writeup, Austin! Most of the points you made were along the lines of what I noticed from watching webcasts, as well.
Regarding seeding points: your allusion to the typical complicated/simple set up that FIRST competitions have is very interesting... I never made that connection. I would think a lot of teams would need to think that way before the 6v0 approach becomes really popular.
The near-zone close range scorer, when combined with a very competent feeding bot from mid-zone looks like the combination that takes most matches. I expect it to become more prominent as teams get better at driving/ball control. I did see a few matches that were focused on heavy defense and relied on end game bonuses for the win. These will probably be phased out in a few weeks, but might still be a common occurrence in eliminations. I suppose we shall see!
EDIT: Thought I would put up the data I was playing with. It's just the qualifying results/rankings from all the week one regionals. I put some notes in for seeding points and match scores, but they were mostly personal notes so that I could see how the game was changing over the course of a regional.
http://www.project1726.org/forums/do...ile.php?id=487