Is there a dominant design style?

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Knufire

"Because they do it" shouldn't be your rationale. Yes, all the top teams doing something is generally a indicator that it's a smart decision. However, blindly following them without figuring out the rationale behind their decisions is a bad idea; there might be variables at play that made WCD the right choice for them but not for you.

Note how Corsetto said that 1678 is going to keep learning from the teams they're inspired by. Copying 254 or 973 probably had some sort of analysis of their resources and what direction was best for them.

There are successful teams that do WCD, there are successful teams that do omnidirectional drives. There are successful tube and gusset teams, there are successful sheet metal teams. Which one is right is completely dependent on the resources available to your team.

Totally agree! Well put.

"Blindly following" and "not figuring out rationale" are pretty poor ways to approach the problem.

The OP is asking the right questions. You need to start by looking out, then shift your focus to looking in. In other words, "steal from the best, invent the rest".

Start by knowing as much of the existing knowledge base as possible (steal from the best).

Then take that knowledge, apply the things that make sense for your team (resources, experience, yada yada), and tweak/customize/throw out the things that don't (aka invent the rest).

Too many teams flip the process, spend too much time focused inward (inventing solutions to already solved problems), and don't realize that the competition has already left them in the dust.

-Mike