MCoach, we have the same sort of thing down here, called the Warman Design and Build comp. It is exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote my post.

You don't need to completely change everything though to give things a good shake up. Remember Ferrari's dominance in F1, after years of stagnant rules? Remember how they had squillions of dollars and fancy wind tunnels and a huge workforce to keep ahead of the comp. Then with a major change in rules suddenly it is a small budget
team with a big picture leader that comes out on top (Brawn F1). There is probably a lot more behind it than that - but I thought it was interesting nonetheless