Pyramidal quizbowl already incorporates those reasoning skills. Most posters on this forum object to non-pyramidal formats because they add an additional element of: which team rings in fastest? The buzzer-race element, which is effectively random in many cases, detracts from any skill-based evaluation of team strength.*Howard wrote:Teams that do well at other formats do well at them because they work at it and/or have a talent for it. It's true that other formats, when compared to pyramidal quizbowl, tend to skew away from the measurement of knowledge and toward the measurement of other things such as the ability to think and reason quickly. How much this happens depends on the specific format of the questions and rules for play, but I contend that working hard at becoming good at something isn't illegitimate just because someone else decides your goal should be different than you think it should be.
*(Yes, buzzer races happen sometimes on pyramidal formats; in almost all cases, the players have been given an opportunity to demonstrate superior knowledge by the previous clues. The leadin buzzer race is a rare event, one that sometimes indicates a poorly-constructed tossup.)