Rag- I know that we probably will not see a carbon fiber cannon for a long time, I was just using it to make the point that there are many lightweight materials that could be used to save weight, rather than using thinner PVC.
I also frankly think the ideas of negative badges is just terrible.

Sorry, just the way I feel.
Clide- The "it can be done easily, it is just a matter of money and space" argument was made by Rag earlier in this thread. And yes it is true that high power guns
usually do nothing to advance the hobby. You guys should know where I am going with this....
The hybrid of course. Many times smaller than a similarly powered combustion, and easily one of the 10 largest advancements in the history of spudding. That is what this badge thing is about. It is about producing radical new things, just like the first hybrid. Sure not every cannon the earn a badge will. Sure there are other ways to do it. There are more conventional channels that most people will follow. So? Great new ideas are one in a million... maybe these badges will knock it down to one in five hundred thou. Good enough for me.
In my last post I made mention of the people that will always do these illogical things. I am perfectly aware of them, but I am not going to advise everyone walk around in a suit of armor and a giant plastic bubble. I am not going to let other's stupidity stand in the way of logic and advancement.
We already do have safety precautions in place, talked about earlier in the thread. Since they do not seem to meet your requirements, do you have any suggestions to improve safety? I have to say that this theoretical badge system, and these forums in general, already decline people to do things that are not safe. I think you really should have said you would like provisions that would "widen the safety margins even more", since I would not be advocating anything that I thought put any 'real person' in any 'real danger'.
Perhaps adding "All cannons need a rated pressure 3 times that of working pressure to be considered safe" (or something along those lines) to the rules would help? (Since any submission to the contest has to follow all forum rules to qualify.) We could also throw in something about "any cannon the moderators feel is unsafe will be disqualified" to further encourage people checking with the staff before starting a potentially unsafe project.
Is there anyone else that is as concerned as Clide is about the power/weight thing? I mean everyone around here
knows not to use "under rated" pipe on anything other than a basic combustions, and lots are a bit nervous about doing even that. Every time someone even mentions 'powerful cannon' materials Sch 80, copper, steel, aluminum- all these things enter my mind. Throwing weight into the equation doesn't drop it down to Sch40, it doesn't make me think of doubling the mix in a steel chamber, it just limits my options to the safe ones remaining. Teaching people to be safe goes much much
much further than just keeping them away from dangerous things.
Light a man a fire and you warm him for a day.
Light a man afire and you warm him for the rest of his life.
Turn a man away from danger and you save him for a day.
Teach a man to be safe and you save him for a lifetime.
I think that is most of what I wanted to say, but I really do not remember. It doesn't matter anyway. Everyone is bound to be sick of my long posts in this thread by now.
I am hoping we will get many more people chiming in with opinions on the Power:Weight thing. It seems to be one of the bigger issues we all need to sort out.