Am I the only one who LOVED the seeding system this year?

[Chris is me]

(after week 1)

So I've been thinking since week 5 about this new seeding system that no one seems to like all that much. I think I break from popular opinion when I say that this system does an awesome job of what qualification systems are supposed to do: rank teams. The system made the highest scoring robots seed 1st, regardless of schedule. At least, on paper it did. Strong schedules where a team won every match, weak schedules against multiple powerhouses, and mixes between the two were all good things, and teams that earned it could become top 8 robots with a little ingenuity.

If people throw out their preconceived notions of "winning" matches, and are more willing to consider the tradeoffs of playing matches 6v0 or 4v2, then the system is really great. Unfortunately, far too many teams decided that these strategies were "unfair", "cheating", etc. which really ruined the experience for those who understood the ranking system and wanted to take the challenge. The way the system forced you to honestly evaluate your chances of winning a match while calculating the gain in seeding 6v0 versus 3v3 was in my mind very smart, and I really didn't like how this year there was so much negativity against outside the box thinking.

I especially liked how losing several matches on Friday did not count your team out of the top 8 like last year. A lot more teams had the potential to put on a really great show for a match or two and rocket back up to the Top 8.

I think if the GDC spells out at the beginning of the year in big letters "PLAYING TO WIN MAY NOT BE THE BEST MOVE" to generally quell the downers and teams that decide because you're playing to win the regional and not the match you should go on their DNP list. Because other than that, I loved how this seeding system worked to put the top at the top.

Does anyone else agree? Am I missing something?