I am not assuming. I watched a few programs from before. It was a yawn-fest, save for Plushenko; I also liked that Mister X skate by Urmanov. Old women were simply unwatchable, all of them. They barely did anything save for spirals. My life is literally too short to watch Kwan. And the ice dance is the only thing getting good now, actually, with the acrobatics and the musical themes versus people skating in circles, pointing toes for a while.
Samarin may have been stiff, but damn it if he didn't leap over half the rink in that one combo and lifted like a meter in the air. Now, that's something.
If I ever decide to watch old stuff, it's going to be 2014-2018s when women finally started to jump and men got multiple quads
I recently watched the one time Kwan won worlds with a triple-triple combination (2001), and that's literally the only time she's ever excited me.