Thanks Dave,
I actually have a similar perspective. In the early 1990s Paul was unbeatable. Still to this day, I'm not sure if I have seen better looking patters. I'm pretty sure that his winning scores back then were in the 520s. I have watched scores get higher over the 28 years I have been attending the Nat's. As it has been stated in this thread, as long as the order is correct, the numbers don't really matter.
Derek
Just for the heck of it...
when I first started competing consistently as an adult flyer there was a widespread school of thought (actually openly espoused by stunt leaders of the day) that the proper way to judge was to "start" with the average maneuver in mind (no description of what that "average" maneuver was supposed to look like). That "average" was determined (by somebody???) to be 25 points (halfway between unrecognizable [10] and perfect {40]). The judge was asked to work up and down from that average based on "oh, that wasn't good" and "that was pretty good" and "wow" and to add or subtract points based on the number and quality of each "wasn't good", "pretty good" and "wow".
I was never schooled on how to determine: First, what an average maneuver (there are 15 different ones, after all) looks like. How much better than that undefined average should result in how much of a "bump" in the score or what constitutes "wows" and/or "that wasn't goods" and how much to add or subtract as each occurs during each 10 to 15 second or so maneuver. Needless to say, judging using such a system wasn't easy inasmuch as it wasn't really a system at all.
Ultimately, the only description we have of maneuvers is the perfect one described in the rule book. Logically, one would envision that perfect maneuver and come up with a score based on how close a given flyer flys his outside squares, etc.
The "up and down from average" technique generally resulted in a lot more "downs" from average (25 points) than it did "ups" and, perhaps as a result would result in lower total scores.
The deductions from perfect system, however, requires only that the judge determine errors from the provided perfect description of each trick and use some form of consistent logic to determine how much of a deduction from perfection each maneuver deserved. Given the quality of maneuvers flown by gentlement such as David, Paul, Derek, Brett and more than a handful of other consistently competitive "top dogs" it is perfect logical that scores based on deviations from perfect would be higher.
Badly imperfect flights will still result in low scores, as they should. Judges must not deduct points if they haven't detected with their own eyes errors and quantified the appropriate deduction...good judges don't. If they don't see errors they don't deduct for them.
Now, whether they're all seeing all the errors might be a different question (says the guy only wishing he could fly like the Davids, Pauls, Dereks and a veritable handful of others. More, of course, around the globe!)
Ted