I am all in favour of making this a solid proposal for the flagship events you mentioned.

but if we were all to get fed up and build a similar machine for a fraction of our weaponed robot€™s cost just so we don€™t see our money and time pushed into the pit by a cordless drill

I came so close to doing this after losing a few hundred quid in 10 seconds in a single battle one event but I didn't. I could easily throw hornet in the arena for one battle and not bother repairing it when it gets damaged but those that know me and have seen me in the pits know that this is far from the truth. I spend hours and hours on all my machines and am thoroughly of the opinion that robots should have active weapons.