I think any extra brain power teams have to put into thinking about dealing with other robot potentially damaging their robot when lifting is just a waste... It don't really add any education value to this project, and it's starting to get to the bad side of human nature.
The pushing and the heavy goals in the game already call for a robust robot design already, so why have another thing to add more head to head competition between robots?
Pushing robots away imply defense and de-scoring, which is fine in a competition. But pulling or hoisting or fork lifting seems to imply that stronger robots can bully yours around, and can take advantage of a weaker robot, just because they aren't designed to be a bully robot... So defense¡K Or demonstration of power wins more... You can do the math
And, especially with this year's shipping rule, you cannot take home your robot after the regionals to do repairs... You really want to prevent as much damages as possible.
And, I don't think rookie teams or 2nd year teams will be prepared for this kind of physics interaction between robots this year, especially with last year's competition.
What do you think?