[Wayne TenBrink]

I am biased, but I recommend that they "impose" the district model on the rest of the country/world. District lines should accomodate a workable mix of quantity and distance. There would be some resistance, like there was in Michigan, but I would expect that to go away once people realized that they were getting a much better value and only losing half as many work/school days (OK, so maybe that isn't such a great selling point for the students).

If you consider the inverse of the current choice, it sounds rather funny (or sad). Imagine FIRST coming to Michigan at this point with the following proposal: "In order to grow the program in your economically stressed area, we propose raising the fees, cutting the number of events in half, reducing the number of matches per event, removing any objective means of scoring your team relative to your peers, and eliminating any affordable, merit based events. In exchange for this, we have arranged give your hard-raised money to professional event planners and transportation services so don't have to lug that 120 lb behemoth by yourselves, and you can watch the few remaining matches under some really cool lighting and great sound." It wouldn't work with me.

Perhaps if the entire country followed the district model, we could find a way for teams to attend events outside their district. That is the only thing I miss with the FiM structure (we can still go out of State, but others can't come to MI).