Well the title says it all. 
Do you guys like/dislike them? If you team was the first to pick alliance partners, would a good wall bot be your first pick? Personally, I think they are sort of cheap, but thereās nothing in the rules about it, so people can do whatever they want.
Robert
Theyāre an effective strategy when examined closely. Not sure how the picks would work out. Would depend on the alliance captains of course (usually offensively-oriented robots) and what they think of wallbots. In my opinion wallbots would be an amazing 2nd pick (3rd team on the alliance) because they would generally be overlooked in lieu of another offensive robot. Ideally the wallbot would play all 3 matches paired with one of the two offensive robots. This would require both offensive robots be effective, so the offensive robot should probably be picked first to guarantee strong matches all around.
If it were up to me I would pick a good wallbot (also known as gatebots) that could consistently contain both robots on the other alliance in their isolation zone. If our robot could score enough (which I bet we could) itās basically a guaranteed win. Expect alliances of efficient scorers and gatebots becoming more common come worlds.
Hmmm yeah, thats also what I think. For both of you guys.
Theyāre certainly a nuisance to play againstā¦ (in a good way)
I would venture to guess that a wallbot will be in one of the top four alliances at World because of the ability to contain strong opponents.
(In VA, the alliance selection is a little different - only 2 teams per alliance in the elims. This means that itās a little risky for a team to pick oneā¦)
//Andrew
I consider wallbots a cheap strategy, because they are purely defensive, and Gateway is supposed to be an āoffensiveā game, but thats just me.
Also, I think that in many cases 2 Robots are required to double/negate effectively. Then again, you may not need to if the two opposition robots are stuckā¦
Also the opponents of the wallbot may have some trouble doubling and negating effectively since they canāt get to their doubler or any of the contested goals.
I like wallbots because they really embody the creativity aspect of VEX. With all of the generic designs hitting their peak in both build and programming so early, itās a nice surprise to see success in such a radical design. Negating would be annoying for allies only because the wallbot would be blocking the ally from the opponentsā goals as well but the doubler should be guaranteed.
if it consistently wins, when why not pick it? (win, as in successfully trapping 2 other robots)
there are peak efficiency bots
then theres these types of robots which guarantees a win with a good partner
and then we go to green eggs which guarantees a win by itself 
A large contributing factor to there being so many robots that are āgeneric designsā is that a lot of people copied successful designs, which definitely doesnāt āembody the creativity aspectā of VEX.
I donāt see the use of a design that I consider ācheapā and the use of a strategy that I also consider ābarely legalā as embodying good design, but that is because, and only because, of my view on wallbots. Iām not saying that people shouldnāt make or use them, but I personally will never support or be impressed by wallbots.
its hard to use terms such as ācheapā
i usually go with ālegalā and āillegalā
if its ālegalā and it has some sort of advantage, you should do it becauseā¦ it gives you an advantage
just like the long āprescore tubeā debate we had last year
Thats why Iām not blanket labelling it as cheap, and am only saying that I consider it to be cheap. There is no point in me arguing as to why I think its cheap because Iām not trying to convince anyone, just saying my personal feeling on it.
Also, in my opinion there can be some debate as to whether gatebots are ālegalā or āillegalā, but thatās another story.
I guess weāll be split on this then because I find wallbots to be quite the feat of engineering, and if the aim of the game is to win, then the best design is the most competitive design, but to each his own and I completely respect your opinion. Maybe at worlds a wallbot or two will be able to change your mind 
Sadly I probably wonāt be attending Worlds due to the large cost :(. However, I certainly will try and keep up with the goings online and will watch a lot of video once it starts being posted to youtube. I certainly will be interested to see how ādifferentā designs of robots do eg. wallbots/hoarders at worlds, especially when it comes to eliminations.
I wouldnāt say that until after nationals
Even if we win it would be unlikely that we would go :(.
Our team canāt go to Nationals either. Itās Nationalās, or hope we qualify for Worldās. But I think Meek has good experiences with wallbots haha
They arenāt talking about American nationals. They are talking about New Zealand nationals.
Legal and illegal are not debatable; they are just there, as written in the rules (and the Q&A). These are the constraints that we all play by. The point is that in this set of restrictions and design goals, weāre all going to see what we can do with them to make the best robot, and I doubt teams will not take an advantage where they can get one. Many teams build their robot to 17.9" in every dimension. We use as much lexan as we can because itās light, customizable and flexible.
Of course, fair/sporting and unfair are completely debatable. In this respect, wall bots are probably not that fun to play as or against, but it works.
Indeed we were. The winners of NZ nationals qualify for worlds and also get monetary assistance for travel. Its possible that we will qualify for worlds through our Robot Skills score (7th = at the moment without any practice), which we will probably increase at NZ nationals also. However, we just donāt think attending Worlds would be worth the huge cost. Especially if we lost every game because of wallbots 
(Haha just kidding).