Regrading K factor. That question comes again and again. Yes we fly every flight the same and we do not choose figures, that is true. But K factor is not here to compensate difficulty of figure. As Keith already wrote it has historical reason, in past we had judged separate figures and since judges was not able to write so many points, figures were summed together including K factors. Simply if judge observed more, the K factor was also higher. The judge are not "counting" mistakes but simply say how much figures match definition. That is reason why we have aproximately the same mark for level flight and also for square eight, does not matter that in level flight I can do only one error while in square eight I certainly do many more. I think that US judges do it different, I saw it on my NATs score sheets, I got twice 40 points for reversed fligh, never happened with FAI judges.
However that all is only theory. The real reason why we wanted to keep K factors on last "rules cleaning" fas fact, that K factor EXPANDS differences on top places. The biggest problem of FAI system on small amount of circles When we must fly up to 100 flyers at once is, that in such larrge group we have differences often only fraction of point. We did analyze of several large contests and we found that K factor makes differences proportionally larger (in % not in absolute number). Simply said, good pilot will do complex figure much better then worse pilot compared to the difference on siple figure. So that is why K :- )))