I agree with your analysis. I am by no means good at figuring out scores, but my thought was that if SE took out some difficulty, even if they still beat SS in that category( not sure what the actual category would be) wouldn't it have the potential to raise SS's score in that category? I am not sure I understand comparative scoring well enough, but my logic is that if there is less of a "gap" between the two teams, it would affect both teams' scores, especially if the team that decreased difficulty performed first. I am really just curious if this is true?