Hopefully having it right before "next gen system e3" wont cut out a lot of people who will be crunching on making e3 deadlines from the contest. I want to see a ton of people compete!
Not really, I only see two reasons to team up with someone. To make up for your own weaknesses or to speed it up. If you teamed up with someone to speed up the process and it turns out its a character contest you can just split up.