There's a whole book on the concept of game balance, focused on arcade fighting games (Street Fighter), written by David Sirlin, who balanced Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix and Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.
Particularly relevant is the section on 'scrubs', the people who arbitrarily ban certain techniques for being 'cheap' instead of coming up with ways to counter them:
As he works explicitly in the world of game balance, he acknowledges that it must always be reasonably possible to counter all usable techniques, or else the game is flawed. He even advocates banning techniques that honestly can't be countered, as a way of turning bad (unbalanced) games into good (balanced) ones.
So I suppose the upshot is that Jeopardy!, as it is now, allows any reaction time physically possible given the limitations of the buzzer and the constraints of the enforced time limit (which penalizes you if you attempt to buzz in before Alex finishes, or for approx. 0.2 seconds after he finishes). You could imagine a Jeopardy! variant with different rules in that respect, but it would not be the same game.
http://www.sirlin.net/ptw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sirlin
Particularly relevant is the section on 'scrubs', the people who arbitrarily ban certain techniques for being 'cheap' instead of coming up with ways to counter them:
http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/intermediates-guide.html
As he works explicitly in the world of game balance, he acknowledges that it must always be reasonably possible to counter all usable techniques, or else the game is flawed. He even advocates banning techniques that honestly can't be countered, as a way of turning bad (unbalanced) games into good (balanced) ones.
http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned.html
So I suppose the upshot is that Jeopardy!, as it is now, allows any reaction time physically possible given the limitations of the buzzer and the constraints of the enforced time limit (which penalizes you if you attempt to buzz in before Alex finishes, or for approx. 0.2 seconds after he finishes). You could imagine a Jeopardy! variant with different rules in that respect, but it would not be the same game.