Are 8 play regional reasonable?

[TCMJ1816]

While watching Top 25 last night they brought up the point that many regional competition only offer 8 qualification plays per team. In Minnesota we have 208 teams, and a vast majority of those teams only get one event a year.

I see 2 major issues with this:
-This make the $5000 it costs to register for events pretty crazy, $625 a match isn't appealing for many of the low budget teams around FIRST.
-This also leaves the teams that do qualify for champs hugely unprepared. Most MN teams at champs will have ~20 plays, versus district teams that will have 40+ plays. EDIT: Many teams come into champs with 80+ plays

There definitely isn't a great solution to this problem, other than going to districts, but that has been addressed in the past.