[marwahaha]

Just a couple things.

As for FTC parts, i think the game committee did consider rookies and limited budgets. This is why the FIRST Choice system is up, promoting organization, as this program is only offered for about a week. They want everyone to get their free parts, including an FTC Kit (you only pay for shipping). It's still frustrating to keep paying for extra parts, but if the endgame was different, then the shipping costs might have been spent elsewhere on the endgame strategy. Most teams should be able to get this kit, they just have to make the deadline.
This is also where the veterans who have more FTC parts can make more minibots to share and work towards a coopertition award.

As for the spectator viewing pleasure, I think this will be interesting to watch for at least the first 30 seconds, and especially the last 30 seconds. It's fine to complain, but these are the rules, let's work to meet this criteria. The first 30 seconds will be autonomous and the beginning of racking tubes, semi-interesting as robots extend out of starting configurations.
However, i think the more "fun" part of watching will be the robot interaction. If you can block the opponent from scoring in their zone, then the game turns into a "red rover" or "sharks-and-minnows" style game. Stay in your feeder/protected lane, then try to dart across the field to your scoring zone, avoiding robots trying to ram you off course. If games are played in this fashion, even people not involved in FIRST will be interested in the maneuverability of the robots and skill of the drive team rather than the racking of individual tubes.
The last 30 seconds will be very interesting as teams get ready to ignite their minibots. They will get ready by their tower, and "open up", essentially spitting out another robot to climb. These races will be intense to watch, probably determining who won.

The best analogy to think of is Harry Potter: Quidditch goals are only worth 10 points each, but whoever gets the Snitch at the end of the game gets 150 points, and likely wins.

EDIT: And in Quidditch you have scorers, and beaters/blockers trying to prevent scoring. Also, the Snitch is not released until later in the game, so for the beginning of the game you watch the scoring (for us, the tubes). When the Snitch is released and sighted you watch the Snitch (or minibot race). This analogy may work pretty well...

I enjoyed how FIRST worked out the kinks of scoring and "coopertition" this year. Take a look at pp65-67, it's pretty cool, as winning is most important. Then close, high-scoring games are preferable to low-scoring games or blowouts for tiebreaking scores. They also wanted to avoid the winning alliance helping the losing alliance to boost tiebreaking scores: As a result, a heavily weighted endgame makes the winner indeterminate until it's too late to help your opponent. I think this endgame change was one of many to prevent the 6vs0 games of last season.

FIRST is trying to unify spirit by integrating programs; I think we will be seeing more cross-overs in the future. This is the reason for the stress on "FIRST Team ----" during Kickoff. To them, it is less important to be a FRC robotics team than be a FIRST robotics team, the true organization behind it all. Yes, it is politics, but it's uniting all the different FIRST spirits (FRC, FTC, etc.) into one big giant community all excited about FIRST. Not only is the FTC kit involved, but the FLL line-tracking is present. By uniting the spirit into one group, the organization can get better recognition from the public and from the government and the media...
Which in turn may increase corporate sponsors, willing to donate to local teams or nationally, and more recruitment from younger schools, helping FIRST grow.

I am content with this year's game. Just really excited to be back in season.