Sky and Telescope magazine held a real challenge where an amateur imaged down to 22-23 magnitudes in light pollution. While watching the Olympic swim races, I noticed they gave the medal to the competitor that finished in the smallest amount of time. The shortest swimming times means maximum, and the swimmers did not have to swim with an arm tied behind their backs. Auto racing and sailing are also competitions where the rules limit equipment size for various classes of events. It is not unusual at all to have constraints of this sort in competition.
Larger telescopes cost more money, but so do high-end CCD cameras.
The fact is that aperture is paramount, and should be fully utilized. Large scopes and film imaged Pluto 70-years ago, and we know they still can. As CCDs have become cheaper, they have moved from large scopes to smaller scopes. This would make Pluto easier to resolve if it were near another star. Anyone stopping down this way should note that down when submitting entries to the Challenge.