PEOPLE .. remember that YOUNG KIDS and people who have never played in organized tournaments POST HERE TOO!!!
So, just answer the question in the spirit of EDUCATING.
Avoid the "what? you don't KNOW??" approach guys. It really kills the SOTG environment.
Skeith.
League Play (and non-competitive games)
The confusion is that Proxies are allowed at league play because you're TESTING deck IDEAS. So, nobody really cares WHAT your cards look like.
Organized Tournaments:
In an organized tournament, you HAVE to have ONLY REAL CARDS because it's, pretty much, MY cards vs. YOUR cards. It's what I could find in my collection vs. what you can find in yours. It goes back to the ol' "my card collection is better than yours" mentality.
Retail Sale of Cards
Pokemon is a BUSINESS. The game drives the card sales. Pokemon wants to make money.
If you NEED to catch a card, you need to buy more packs to find it. That's more money for them.
If they REQUIRE you to have the REAL cards, then you need to buy MORE packs to catch that card.
Now, the commercial implication is that THE MORE YOU WANNA PLAY, the MORE CARDS YOU'LL NEED TO BUY. So, there's the REAL reason why proxies are not allowed. We buy cards. Nintendo can afford to offer organized play events. We buy. We play
TRADING
The good news is that you can TRADE to get the cards you need. It is a trading card game and Nintendo encourages trading. So, you can save alot of money swapping out cards w/ others (visit the TRADING POST section of this site).
I've spend an INSANE amount of money acquiring complete sets of all the diamond and pearl collections.
I have SO MANY cards. And, still, not enough of what I use (like.. Claydols!!). I, definately, feel your pain.
Only recently have I discovered the miracle that is the Trading Post!
So, look there for your solution.
Hope that helps.