I had gotten bored of this senseless thread but felt the need to return fire due to this post. I've seen your other posts, and although I have not gone through and disected every one of them I respect you and your atittude towards the matter. Your opinion is your own, however I disagree on a couple points you made in this:So what was one of my concerns again? That is right. Tournaments exist for more than just "having fun", and as such when you scoop you are failing to deliver the match you promise by entering to begin with. The rules allow you to scoop most likely (I don't claim to know this as a fact) because sometimes it will be unavoidable. If someone is suddenly injured or it becomes apparent that illness will keep them from playing, forcing them to play it out would be cruel.
Someone trying to manipulate certain standings in their own favor, or the favor of someone else are in many ways defeating the purpose of the event, unless "playing the system" is considered a legitimate Pokemon skill (and as I have stated, if it is considered that, then this part falls flat).
Then we get to (probably almost non-existent) "nice guy" scoop. First, this still may alter the event outcome as above. Second, if you entered a tournament to play Pokemon, why aren't you playing Pokemon?
You argue that tournaments do not exists just to have fun. I say they exist SOLELY to have fun, it happens that winning is also very fun to do hence the competitive nature (the prizes definitely help) but the main appeal and purpose of any pokemon event is to enjoy yourself. The angry WOTC guy you mentioned I believe was absolutely wrong in his judgement and words to you. If you wanted to go just to get cards, and that is what you found enjoyable it is no one's right to stop you. These things aren't just for the hyper competitive, and you were in no way ruining the event for other people. So what if you were a free win? You had the right to be there and the small changes in structure that the free win caused is not enough of a disruption to demonize you.
As pokemon is geared and advertised as a childrens game I imagine honor and fair-play are a key part of the core morals, hence I don't think that pokemon purposefully made scooping with the intention of "playing the system" as a skill. However no one in this thread is talking about people doing that, we are discussing the "nice guy scoop" as you stated; which is almost 100% of the time the cause of a scoop. Rarely is there malicious intent or former collusion like you seem to imply, but simply friends or relatives being nice to one another. And as for the last quoted sentence of yours, my former point of event goals being determined by each individual player comes in again. No one can (or should) stop a player from playing simply for fun, and when that player comes up against a friend who is actually playing for points that matter to them I see no issue why the casual player should be criticized for his choice in scooping.