In the documentation, make it clear to mapmakers what they need to do to make their start mechanism work well with autoref, i.e. provide a lever somewhere that opens the gates instantly, without a countdown. For maps that are not autoref-aware, it would be good if autoref had the ability to force gates open (quickly) by applying redstone power to arbitrary blocks.

It would also be nice if autoref could stay in sync with built-in team ready systems, by setting and reading their state through mechanisms specified in the map config.

If you do the ready sync, how do you stop the starting mechanism from firing before the countdown is over? (or how do you open the gates when autoreferee is not there?)

I guess autoref should intercept the ready switch events so the built-in system never activates at all.

What about putting levers on the gates after a redstone repeater. so when the match starts they can drop the gates and it doesn't reverb into the non-AR redstone?