Why is Engineering Inspiration viewed as second place to the Chairman's Award?

[Truelight]

When I first started in FRC and up until recently I always was very upset with the way FRC judging was run. I felt that from the criteria to the judging it self there were many ways to improve it.
After having more time to think things through, I've found that the judging in FIRST is done in a way to foster creativity and innovation. For example if you say for the chairman's award they said the team that starts the most teams or mentors the most teams will win, this would limit teams to whatever criteria FIRST would set and it would also distract from what the Chairman's and Engineering Inspiration awards are all about.
Connecting this to OPs point, there is overlap with Chairman's and Engineering Inspiration and that's OK.
I fear the more we limit any award like this, teams may focus more on how to win, more than how to do good in the world through innovative methods. My point here is that right now yes you could argue these awards are subjective and not set up the best way but this is what acts as the insensitive for people to go out and do new awesome things. Whether they start doing these things for the right reasons or not, I believe in the end they will see what it is really all about.

I am the first one to admit that in my early stages in FIRST I just wanted to do things because it would make our team have a better shot at winning chairman's or EI. It was only after doing some of the new and innovative things our team, like many others do, came up with that the reflection of our community impact came back and hit me (along with help from some great FIRST alum, and our teams mentors along the way) Whether it was people just saying thank you after an outreach event, seeing people that you first hand brought to FIRST thrive in the program, or meeting amazing people that do incredibility things in all parts of the community. All of this helped to show me what it was all about. This all started with me having the wrong mindset and the sometimes seeming ambiguous judging criteria (along with many passionate people on my team) brought me around and showed me that sure you can do things that sound good but the judges will really pay attention when they see your teams true passion and how it has impacted the community.
Every team has this, I can take time to learn how to express it.
The things that stick with you are not winning the awards but the impact you make on people. This is what it is all about. The awards like EI are just a cherry on top.