Why is there so much falling in top-level figure skating?
Chris Hartman poses this question. He favors higher penalties for errors and thus safer routines. I would think that the optimum (in a lot of other sports, too) has shifted in the other direction. In the old days, everyone watched on TV and suffered through a lot of error-ridden performances. The average quality of performance mattered more. These days the very best performances are reproduced on YouTube and other venues. That indicates we should seek a higher variance of performance quality, since we can keep and reproduce the very best for most of the relevant viewers.
What sports rule changes does this imply?