[tomegun]

Drothamel, I know of at least 7 D-1 conferences on the east coast which teach going top-side versus low-side. I'm not saying that to down HS ball at all. The fact is people officiate HS ball everyday because the assigner has to have a certain number of officials working as opposed to college assigners having people on staff that want to do the right thing for the most part.
Since we are talking about people who want to officiate rather than collecting a check we should dismiss any notion of bailing out. Bailing out is obviously something we shouldn't do, especially from the C.

Going low-side:

Cuts off your field or "cone" of vision and rotates it away from the basket.
Allows you to see space between two players
Allows you to see the ball when the dribbler has it on the baseline side of his/her body.
Creates a stack on most drives or at least too many to the hole.
Creates a possible stack on baseline jumpers.
Limits ability to pick up screens that come from the baseline
Limits ability to help L with out of bounds call
Severely limits ability to get angles on rebounding plays.

Going top-side:

Opens up your field of vision
Allows you to see space between players
Allows you to see ball when dribbler has it on the "top" side of his/her body
Allows you to make adjustments to get great angles on all drives to the basket
Allows you to see space on baseline jumpers
Allows you to see screens that come from either side of the player with the ball
Increases possibility to help L with out of bounds call on your side of the court
Allows you to make adjustments to get angles on rebounding plays
Allows you to become T quicker in case of a steal/turnover

Mechanically, this is one of the best improvements for 3-man crews in some time. If our goal is to get a higher percentage of calls right going top-side allows us to move towards that goal. This is not a one size fits all thing but it is something that works more than it doesn't.