Chaz, to clarify things a bit.
Turn around manuvers at the end of the box are not typically judged as a seperate manuver, yes they are judged in realism of flight, but if they were judged as an elective manuver, you would certainly reduce the flight time, speeding everything up.

The K factor would make everyone really practice the required manuvers in all sorts of flying conditions. The attitude of the ac is not judged, the placement, precision, and realism are what are judged. If the ac has to crab, slip or whatever to achive the desired effect than that is what it has to do. Just like a full scale. If the CD does his job properly, the judges should all be aware that the lightly loaded ac are going to have a tuff time in crosswind conditions. No one would normally fly a full scale cub or whatever in a normal 15-20 direct cross wind. Think what the componet is on your model with 15-20. Look at the flight rounds from the last qualifier you attended or if someone as all the flight scores, which manuvers normally have the lowest scores. Fig 8, landings, and fly-bys all required. What manuvers normally have the highest scores, desending 360, 180 turn out etc. What about the mechanical option with a manuver, 5pts right out of the gate if the switch worked pretty much. With a WW1 bird you don't have alot of mechanical or different fly-bi's options. Most all competition uses K factors to level the field.

does the best builder / flyer normally win. Of course. Here is an example of how the K factor works.

TO FB FIG8 ELEC ELEC ELEC ELEC ELEC LDG RF
K2 K3 K5 K4 K2

9 8 8 8 8 7 7 8 9 9 81
18 24 40 8 8 7 7 8 36 18 175

7 8 7 9 9 9 9 9 8 9 84
14 24 35 9 9 9 9 9 32 18 168

As you can see, the pilot with the best elective scores wins the round with an 84 and the pilot that flew the required manuvers had an 81, throgh in the K and the whole thing changes. Even if he scored all 10's in the electives he would still be behind by 2 pts.

Unfortunately none of these ideas changes the look of Scale Masters, it may get a few more entries, but.
JohnnyO