I have to agree that East Coast is somewhat competitive out of what i see,but i mean everyone has a competitive side, some show it more then others. Its like playing a friendly game of basketball, you first say that you are not gonna keep score you are gonna shoot around and just have fun with it, but when you start playing your competitve side kicks in and you step it up a knotch. I mean i have seen teams from all over with there competivitve side. I think that all this competition is very controlled, i dont see fist fights or anythign and at the end of the day no matter if a team flipped your robot to make you lose a match or a team broke your robot, everyone is still friends. Thats what i like about FIRST it promotes friendly competition. I play hockey and that is a sport that everyone is your enemy except for yoru own team. Thats why i like FIRST i could have a nice competitive competition against teams like 108,267 and then at the end be talking to 108 about networking and goign out to dinner with 267.
About teams that keep the same driver etc etc. They have found something they like and if it helps them win so be it. I mean are team has never kept the same drive, heck are team cant even decide on a team color every year we are a dif color we went from green(2001) to camoflauge(2002) to this year being grey and blue. We tried soemthing in 2002 that we liked and i mean we stuck with it this year for are robot. Sooner or latter the game is gonna require a team to change their drive but if they want to keep their drive fine it gives us another year to learn how/or to beat it.
Sorry if this is all nonsense, Kinda early in the morning