Here's Marvel Girl being crushed by a Sentinel:

Oh, and let's not forget that time Cyclops was crushed by a Sentinel.

At least they use that anesthetic gas so the pain isn't too bad.  Mean ol' We-Only-Know-How-To-Crush Sentinels.

Chad, while I appreciate the work you're going to in order to sell the idea of the Champions as a potentially cohesive unit, the idea has always been "random character stew" and not a particularly appetizing serving of it.

The JSA shared the commonality of being the only ones who did what they did at the time they did it.  Roy Thomas took this to ridiculous extremes in All-Star Squadron, including every possible hero of that era in the team, but the basis of the JSA from the start was essentially a club for men (with the occassional exception) who underwent extraordinary adventures.  That was the unifying principle.

Other teams that have been cobbled together with existing characters retain a far greater sense of unity than the Champions.  Titans West is made up of characters who have all interacted with the main team in some capacity or another and have therefore seen the benefits in forming an association.  Avengers West Coast (for which the Champions was a sort of rough template) are all former Avengers, or people who certainly could have been.  Giving the team the Avengers franchise made them instantly credible, with all of the same reasons for staying together the main team had.

An itinerant Olympian god, a professional super-hero love interest currently between men, two random X-Men, a do-gooder hellspawn, the tried-and-true brother/sister combo (now with Russian accents), and assorted second-stringers do not a team nor a team concept make.  I much preferred Mantlo's original concept of two X-Men on a road trip.  It was a bit derivative, but it would have been fun, watching them tool about, Route 66 style, picking up various hitchhiking heroes-at-loose-ends, teaming up, maybe leaving them behind.  You could even wind up with exactly the same line-up and have had a much better time getting there...

A related question: Why do heoroes and teams that headquarter themselves in New York and the East Coast seem so much more "authentic" than those that hang out in sunny California?

I've often wondered a similar question myself Brian,  why do all of the west coast super-teams seem to fail?  Of course it could be worse, here in Florida all we had was the Man-Thing.

MIchael, you got to have nice weather, Disneyworld and the Universal Studios Theme Park.  And Yancy Butler in the short-lived TV series South Beach.  Having super-heroes on top of all that would've been too, too much. Besides, didn't Rex the Wonder Dog wind up in Florida?

And Wayde, my apologies for misremembering Mantlo's involvement with the team's creation.

Sorry, JB.  That would've been me, making a sideway's comment about "Mantlo's original concept" in the midst of all my yammering.

A related question: Why do heoroes and teams that headquarter themselves in New York and the East Coast seem so much more "authentic" than those that hang out in sunny California?