Point of reserve gear?

[zinthorne]

So I have been reading and reading and trying to understand the point of the reserve gear. If you think about it it gives both teams a free gear. This means if each alliance places it in the first slot they are still equal. Why not just get rid of the gear and make one of the other spires require one less gear. The only reasons I can see are:
-FIRST wanted higher game scores so they are giving a free 40 points.
-An alliance knows they need an extra 35 points in auto to win the match and they are unable to place a gear on the peg in auto so they take the 25 point tech foul and take the 35 points for spinning up a spire.
-FIRST wants to see the competence of human players to place the gear for the free points.

To me it seems much more logical to make the spire that takes 6 gears only need 5 and get rid of the reserve gear. This would make the game more interesting because it would require teams to place 7 gears to spin 3 spires as opposed to 6 because of the free gear. Please inform me if I am missing something in game strategy. I appreciate any help understanding it.