I can't help but notice that almost all of the people who are angry with you about the friend rule are ducks and other smogon mods, who are personal friends with almost anyone that they would have reason to fear at the tournaments. Of course, they are going to debate that by saying that they wouldn't friend rule people like Halordain or the Schambers brothers, but those three or four people pale in comparison to the 35+ ducks, all top tier Pokemon players. There isn't a comparable situation in the entire nation, or a larger or more skilled support group.
Not all of the ducks are top tier players (for example, myself). The ducks are a group of friends who thought it would be fun to wear team shirts, and we just happen to include some of the best players in the game.
You mentioned Halordain, I lost to him in round 4 of Seattle, and played 3 strong opponents in my first battles. Being able to avoid my duck friends in no way gives me an easy path.
It is wholly in the ducks' interest to discourage the utilization of the friend rule in any way, because what it results in is a thinning out of the competition in the earlier rounds of the tournament. Less skilled battlers make it to the top 16 when two skilled trainers who have been training for months meet up in the first 4 rounds. Although this may not be the primary motive behind their discouragement of using the rule, it certainly is a side-effect. It is also interesting to note that skarm has said before that the VGC planners have been instructed to not pair ducks together in the tournament anyways.
You're entitled to your theory about why some of us jumped on Milan about the friend rule thing. But here's another theory:
The friend rule is good for everyone, not just the ducks. Everyone wants to have a chance to go far in the tournament with their friends without having to eliminate each other.
The friend rule is a privilege, it didn't used to exist in earlier tournaments. Even if you would like it to be for pseudo-seeding, that's not what it's for, and if it's abused in such a way, we could all lose the privilege.
Seeing that the friend rule is good for everyone, including moderators of this forum, the moderators would like to make it clear that they don't condone abusing it for the purposes of getting ahead (because we know TCPi does read this forum). So when Milan posts the following:
"Then another Smogonite shows up(forgot her name) and we Friend Clause her."
What do you expect them to say? The way he worded it makes it look like abuse. He later confirmed that she actually was part of their group of friends (and no one was on his back about that particular issue after that iirc), but that's not how it looked at first. And then you have people spreading the idea that the friend rule is for avoiding good players, and it just makes the whole thing that much worse.
The best way to keep this privilege is to a) not abuse it, and b) make it publicly clear in this forum that it's not to be abused.
As for VGC planners being told not to pair ducks together, even if that is true, that is no different from the friend rule that is available to everyone, since all the ducks are friends. It would just make it easier to identify, since mistakes have been made before (like Synre mentioned, he had to play Fishy last year even though the staff wasn't supposed to match friends together that early).
Personally, I believe that any rule that would allow any top tier battlers that meet up in the first round to be relegated to less skilled players is one that encourages a more fair tournament. I won't cite any examples, but even in my short VGC career, we have all have seen several nondeserving teams make it to the national championships, while better battlers do not make it when the friend rule could have been easily utilized. And even past that, I would consider any fellow IRC regular on the channels that I go to worthy of friend ruling, most smogonites or *WEBSITE NAME CENSORED* too. I don't like to think of this community as a hostile one, even though it often times proves to be. Also, I would without a doubt friend rule someone who I spent hours talking to before the tournament.
When I asked a staff member in Seattle, he said that they were trying not to pair friends together. He didn't say that they were trying not to pair good players together.
Maybe it would be nice to have some kind of seeding, but there isn't any right now. That could be a separate debate, but let's not lose the friend rule by trying to seed ourselves.
These may be controversial opinions, but I do not doubt that there are several others who believe the same thing, but are too afraid to post them against the opinion of seemingly all the ducks and smogon mods. I, too, am afraid that this post will be deleted or that even worse will happen to me for disagreeing with the powers that be on this website. I do not feel that my stance on the friend rule is against the tournament's spirit, nor do I think that it is abusive or illegal. I think that both sides of this discussion need to be heard. Perhaps a better reason than "It's called the FRIEND rule!" is in order (especially since there is no mention of a rule by that name on the official VGC site. As far as I know, it is a term coined by smogon).
People are always scared to speak up about stuff but hopefully you will see now that there's nothing to be scared of.
I have also not seen an official name for this rule anywhere, but if you want to know whether your interpretation is abusive, think of it this way. When you see someone you don't want to play, do you tell the staff member that they are your friend, or do you tell them that they are a good player? I've managed to avoid playing a couple friends this way, but I've never seen anyone get away with the latter.
Also, to do with the whole Andrea situation: really? She can fight her own battles. She doesn't need 10 guys white-knighting her over every silly thing. Problem could have easily been solved with half the aggression you showed Milan, and much more discretion (a PM, maybe?).
Agreed, it did get out of hand. At the same time I can understand people getting on him since it appeared that he made like 3 total dick moves all at once, even though it now seems like it was partly just bad wording and misunderstandings.
And as I explained before, it is important for the bit about the friend rule to be public so that it doesn't get abused more.
I have more to say on this, but I think I got my main point across. I don't have any ill-will towards the ducks, but I do believe that this discussion has been almost entirely dominated by them, as others have been before, and that one-sidedness is something that makes me uneasy, to say the least.
Feel free to speak up any time. :)