Gracious Professionalism VS Competition

[NyCityKId]

I've seen a few threads on CD and the FIRST forum that got me thinking. Lately Ive been wondering how compatible Gracious Professionalism and Competition are. I think some people start to forget that while we are expected to act graciously and professionally, FIRST Robotics Competition is still a competition. For example I saw a post on the first forums about passing a tube back to an opposing alliance member who dropped it. Even though this is extremely sportsman-like I can't help feeling that this is a little backwards. Then there is the fact that the GDC had to update the manual to say that it is against the rules to score on an opposing alliance's scoring grid. These, along with a few other threads which I wont mention for the sake of attention spans, make me wonder whether people are actually taking gracious professionalism too far. So what do you think?