Team Tournament Rating Strategy In high school I played on a chess team, but that was fairly straightforward because there were no rating restrictions for teams.  Every team just grabbed the 5 strongest players and then ordered them by strength.

In most other team tournaments (except for the Chess Olympiad), there is a rating limit (i.e. the average rating of the 4 players must be less than or equal to the limit).  Additionally, most team tournaments are comprised of teams of 4 players.

That was all a build up to a request for the best strategy for a team of 4 in terms of ratings.  Given a rating limit of 2000 (as it is in this upcoming tournament), what are the best strategies to create a highly competitive team?  Similarly, what are the average ratings on each board?

For example, a team of 4 equal rated players (2000, 2000, 2000, and 2000) would likely be at a disadvantage on the top 2 boards, but would most likely have a rating edge on the lower boards.  On the other hand, a top heavy team (2500, 2000, 1800, 1700) would be more likely to have an edge on the top board, but at the cost of the second board.

A perfect answer would draw on statistics from past tournaments, but I would love to have personal anecdotes as well!
My own experience (from high school, decades ago), is that balanced teams do better. That's because most opposing teams are unbalanced. 

I was first board on my team, and "league average" against other first boards. 

But my lower boards were barely worse than me. They "cleaned up" against their counterparts, few of whom were "barely" weaker than me. 

Hopefully your first board will get you a "random" result, and the lower boards will prevail against their opponents.