I believe once upon there was quite a bit of artistry and creativity in Men's FX...and then the Russians came and everybody played catch-up. While there is some creativity here and there, it's become more about power and strength. This is what I believe has led to the disinterest in Men's FX.
I think the problem with music in optional level routines gets down to poor choreography. Basically half arsed dance with music that the gymnast/coach likes. Being a guy and not coming from a dance background, I can remember being at a few gyms or seeing other optional routines...and thinking " they're dance and choreography " look forced.
I just had this discussion with a fellow coach at my old gym that I still visit when talking about our optionals vs the optionals at the old gym. Our optional coach at my old gym has become an awesome choreographer, keeping consideration with different gymnasts and their styles vs her vision of what such and such gymnast should do or just enough dance to get through with made up transitions. These routines stick out like a sore thumb. In our area, we really only see really good choreography from a few gyms. Maybe good music at a few others, but both?! Not really.
I've heard a lot of the girls talk about wanting to try High Bar. However, I think they should move to setting the bars as far apart as possible with new generations of uneven bars. I would still say it is very important to set apart the men's and women's events. BB is as particular to women as PH is to men's. Of course, the men also have SR and PB which bare some similarities to each other and HB. Maybe if women came to High Bar, they would challenge the men when it comes to pirouetting and form; but High Bar is very exciting to watch for the Men as Uneven Bars is for women because of the bigger dismounts and releases. Perhaps women could get more into this if they switched to steel rails vs wood/composite/whatever.
Don't take out Vault! Come on. While it's basically tumbling with a longer run than Power Tumbling...there is that major distance of an obstacle.
The men's strength is a bit weird. OTOH, there are Victorians being done.
Another point. The reason people still watch Women's floor is the artistry and creativity. I've had this argument with my friends. While it's great, that Men's FX has become about uber power and strength...Men's gymnastics has also become a skeleton of what it used to be. Elitism might be great to push the sport but ultimately it might die off with some bad decisions. Especially, here in the US.
My boss had an awesome idea about scoring. Personally, I'd be very interested in scoring by video analysis after a routine. The technology is here now, but it would take a bit more time per routine. There is some thought that inputting judging on the fly, but I'm thinking after the routine, at least as a check. Check visual vs video.
Another thought he had was to divide events per categories but not make them mandatory in their current sense. A routine would have to have so many of each letter value, but the gymnast could input them where they would shine. Perhaps they were poor front tumblers, but awesome side tumblers. They could then individualize routines so routines did not become so cookie cutter. There would be bare minimums for routines. Well it was something like that.
Instead of all this new 15, 17.xx scoring go back to the Perfect 10. Instead of re-evaluating skills every quadrennium, deduct from a value score.
