It is my belief that scoring systems, in and of themselves, theoretically benefit smaller teams. You are rewarded points proportionally, but points are deducted absolutely.
example:
A: team of 17 drops 1 of their 5 stunts. (20% of stunts drop)
B: team of 36 drops 2 of their 11 stunts (18% of stunts drop)
If they do the same stunts performed the same way, they both get the same start value because of the "ratio" concept. Team B, with 2 falls, gets more points deducted from their score than Team A. As a result, Team A has a much higher net score from stunts, despite having a statistically inferior stunt performance. (Team B hit a higher percentage of their stunts, but gets penalized more than Team A.)
Most people have the impression that larger teams benefit from the score sheets, though. Why is this? - the logical fallacy that correlation implies causation.
Most of the time, experience tells us that larger teams tend to outscore smaller teams. We see many competitions and it looks like large teams typically end up with higher scores. If you see this often enough, it is easy to assume that more people on the floor causes the scores to go higher. This is not necessarily true, however.
More experienced gyms tend to have maxed-out teams for economic reasons. (Not just to make more money per se, but to maximize resources like floor space, coaching, prime times in the schedule, etc. You could argue that they can keep the tuition lower by being more efficient.)
More experienced gyms also tend to have stronger teams, on average, than newer, less experienced gyms. There are always exceptions, but generally, older & larger programs tend have teams that outscore newer, smaller gyms for multiple reasons.
I feel that the "upward pressure" on scores from being an experienced gym tend to outweigh the "downward pressure" on scores from biases in the scoring system. In other words, DESPITE the fact that the scoring system favors smaller teams, larger teams tend to end up with higher scores because of other factors.
NOTE: This is also a vast oversimplification of my "theory" that is simply opinion and based solely on anecdotal evidence. I also work with a larger, older program so my viewpoint is not objective.