People can argue to the contrary all they want but as humans we have biases in the way we perceive things. In Pattern we've done the best job that can be reasonably expected to eliminate the effects of these biases through identification, education and the scoring system.

One program I watched showed how something as simple as colour can alter perception by having actors filmed in a situation with that film shown to groups of people's with their perceptions obtained via questionairs. The colors on the actors shirts were altered electronically and there were significant differences in the perceptions of the audiences based on the shirt colours alone. That is why I'll never own a green motorcycle or a green plane because there's always something not right about something painted green :-)

Seriously though, unless we're flying the same plane/motore/colour scheme/style and the judges don't know who the pilot is (at a small comp you don't have to see the pilot to know who's flying, you just know their style), then it'll never be a true level playing field.

But if it were like that then pattern would be just that little bit more boring....