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I long for the old days when most routines got between 9.0 and 9.3, a really good routine between 9.4 and 9.5, and 9.6 and up was great and reserved to reward more difficulty and exemplary execution.  Remember when Lucy Wener's bar routine, which was often flawless, would get a 9.8 and we are all satisfied?  If Utah wanted to shoot for clean execution and safe routines for a 9.5 across the board, then they took a knowing risk against teams who would shoot for the 9.8s with more difficulty (which could easily turn into 9.0s based on the difficulty).  We all understood the tradeoff and appreciated the different approaches for what they were.

Now, they have compressed the code so much that clearly dissimilar routines/approaches are evaluated as if they were the same.  As a fan, I love watching gymnasts throw more difficulty (as long as it is done safely) and am frustrated each and every week when it is not fairly rewarded because of the code.  Vaults like Milliner's, Hunter's, King's and I think Grable's should be worth MORE than the standard issue yurchenko full.  There also seems to be agreement on that.  Although I hate the way the new elite code overemphasizes difficulty and is breaking all the gymnasts, I do like that it allows the judges to reward the top end routines in a way that I, as a fan, feel is recognizable.  

It just seems odd and pointless to me that every single gymnast on all the top teams is at the very top end of the scale (9.8 and up on a scale of 10).  I remember feeling this way in the 1992 Olympics, but by the 1996 Olympics something changed and a 9.637 became a very good score again, and I liked it.  Can you imagine if this was the evaluation rating scale at work, and the hardest and most outstanding workers were rated only ever so slightly better than perfectly good but not truly outstanding workers?  Maybe their goal is to discourage taking the risks, I admit on this point I am not well informed.

If we adopted this sort of approach, the judges could have given Milliner a 9.8 or so, and we fans would feel that the difficulty would have been rewarded with appropriate deductions for form in the air.

Overall, when watching the meet, I was super impressed by how the Alabama gymnasts seemed to float into their landings (with a ridiculous number of stuck landings).  I think that was the major difference in the meet, and I thought it was fair that Alabama was rewarded for it.  Florida's landings on vault and floor were messy, although I did read somewhere that they were avoiding practicing hard landings too much this early in the season to save their legs for later, so maybe that is it.  One other thing I noticed:  Marissa King got away with a big wobble in her front aerial again!!!  So Florida fans cannot complain about judging too much (although i don't think many were).  If Florida performs beam like that in the post season, I will be BEYOND thrilled!!!!!  I think they will sort out vault, bars and floor, traditional areas of strength.