[Chris is me]

For what it's worth, the FTC competition has always restricted parts to one vendor, even before Tetrix was involved. The intent of this is that the parts are supposed to be relatively inexpensive and standardized, so all teams have an even and accessible playing field. This is the primary draw of FTC and similar competitions - machining resources aren't needed and the only constraint relative to other teams is your critical thinking skills.

So FTC forces a monopoly by design. It definitely is a valid way to execute the above goal - in my experience with the program (granted, back in 2008) it worked pretty well!