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Kalix,
I am with Garth and Rich on this . . .
FEDlandia is a vast nation that is impacted by things that you (and I) may never experience.
Trust me, I have gone from thoughts much like yours to understand more-and-more "why" FED does what it does.
Let me, in a non-judgmental way, explain a few FED ideals:
1) All children that play FED sports have parents . . . these parents have attorneys.
2) We live in a society where when people cannot perform that take legal actions to insure that their child can have fewer obstructions to fullfill that parent's dream.
3) FED has a huge challenge in keeping up with all the physical, societal and attitude changes.
Are FED rules cumbersome?
At times.
Do the "just make stuff up"? Nope.
Again FED has priorities.
Rules are made generally for the following reasons:
1) Safety. #1 issue with FED is keeping sport alive at the high school level. Injuries could be the one force that ends interscholatic play. FED understands this.
2) Participation. You also agree that it is FED's job to make openings for more children to learn the spirit of sport by participation. They have taken the time to understand and build rules that allow children to play.
3) Speed-up. This surprises me since we sledom see a 7 inning high school game much over 2 hours in this area. HOWEVER when I did research on this issue for an article I found that there are areas of the US that REGULARLY see 4 (four) hour high school seven inning games. FED found that several small issues added to this time and did a fair job (since tweaked several times) to try to let a game be played as intended (without a game clock) by kept moving.
4) Inconsistently trained umpires. By far the largest issue that FED deals with each new high school season. I have been a member of seven different associations. I have found a common denominator at each one.
There are seldom enough umpires to work all scheduled games. Even in a well trained association you have umpires that are no more than "warm bodies" to fill slots.
Training is so widely variant at different geographical areas FED has tried hard to eliinate many judgment type calls and made them more simpler, non-judgmental, rules.
This is why we have the "automatic foul ball" on an incorect call of "foul", speed not an issue in the turning of shoulders to check a runner at first base, and a clear definition of the start of a wind up as in an associated thread on this page.
I was taught long ago:
"If you really want to understand something, try to change it!"
When I reached my upper limit of dissatisfaction with FED I began to look for ways to influence a change. What I found is that FED is not "a group of people that meet each summer and to justify their positions so they change rules,", to a fine understanding of "how" rules are changed.
In closing, the preponderence of rules changes are instigated by COACHES -- it is this group that wants the limits established for the game they teach. Umpires simply are reporters of what happens on the field of play.
Again, I intone the following:
"If you do not like the rules your client supplies YOU have the choice to not work those games."
FED umpires complain more about Federation rules than all other FED sports officials combined.
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