Over here in Michigan, I've seen the same thing
happen at least once, I think (at the U of M Autumn
Classic)... I think that Joe Marsano (sp?) has the right idea
for his Academic Initiative tournaments: he either
chooses brackets randomly or seeds teams (depending on
how well he knows the field), and switching of A and
B teams is punishable by disqualification. Needless
to say, I haven't seen it happen there.
That
said, I was most chagrined when our B team (who we
thought were our (!) 7-12 players) beat us in the
quarterfinals and went on to take 2nd in the
tournament.
That is to say, I am definitely not opposed to the
idea of B and C teams in general, especially with
teams like ours that have 20+ members, of which 12+
attend most any given tournament, many of whom are
varsity level.
At a championship tournament, however,
the issue might be a bit different. We won the Class
B title, and our B team, had we made one (we
instead sent a 9-man team to States), would have been
_extremely_ competitive in the tournament. I doubt, though,
that that would have had a positive effect on the
tournament as a whole.
--Nate