"Spare Parts" Rules Are Broken

It's obvious from many of the questions that were posted this year, that many teams look for loopholes in the rules/guidelines. At the kickoff, Dean gave a demonstration of "straddling", but there were still questions about straddling and other issues that were probably obvious to many, but clearly weren't obvious to all: what is hanging? is a servo a motor or electronics? do we really have to leave those blue wires?

If we really want teams to interpret the rules from a common ground, the manual should provide clear principles behind the rules. Consider a young team who feels that FIRST is all about working hard, getting no sleep, and persevering through adversity. They could easily interpret the rules about construction time to mean "work really hard for 6 weeks; then work non-stop from Thursday to Saturday at the competition." While an off-site shop has to be shared with other teams, they might not see anything wrong with staying up all night using hand tools in their hotel room. I don't think that implies any malice; it's just a lack of understanding of what the rule is really after.

Perhaps a page should be added to section 1 of the manual, after the description of GP, describing guiding principles behind the rules: safety (mechanical and electrical); GP (not hindering or destroying robots or field); design resources (why is there a budget; why can't we use the drive train we built last year; why can't we build spare parts after we ship). I think that people who have been with FIRST for a while have developed an intuitive sense for the "spirit of the law". But we can't assume that everyone has that same insight.