One way to think about it.

[tjrage_25]

Beyond this, frequent Chief Delphi Forum readers know that this was a hot topic of discussion right after the Team Forums.

I don't think this was a last minute surprise.

I am a frequent reader on the forum, and I hate to admit it, but I did see the limiting of the Nationals coming. Just not on this large of a scale! They cut over half the number of teams as there was last year.

As for this not being a last minute suprise, I sincerely doubt if anyone could for see FIRST combining pre-qualification, a points system, in-season qualification, and odd/even team number restrictions into their registration all at once! It's almost like they were reading the forums and incorporated all of our ideas at once.

Each one of the restrictions they used were fine with me to use (except odd/even team numbers...I still don't understand why FIRST used that!) would actually be good ideas alone with some tweaking. But putting all of them in at once just makes a big confusing mess.