Lol, I'm pretty sure we have TEAMS in my state that had 18 38s at state. Just looked it up. Almost 80 38+. Which is more than 10% of the total interestingly enough.
This is not to say that I think we are any better than the other, more populated areas (on the contrary, I think our scores are just higher and also that some of those area have a much shorter season than us while our kids compete nearly the entire school year). But, on the other hand, I have also seen routines from less populated areas score higher than they would have here. So it's a mixed bag. That said, I think it's important to recognize the barriers faced by coaches and gymnasts in these areas where there isn't a big gymnastics community.
so I guess my overall point is it's almost impossible to compare. USAG had put a judging presentation together that traveled throughout the regions and they had brevet judges along with the compulsory committee judge routine videos they had taken from meets around the country. And they also judged some of the routines that had been filmed but were ultimately "out takes" from the optional level kids who demonstrated the routines in the compulsory materials. And those scores for any given routine were lower than almost any scores I see around the country (I watch tons of routines on YouTube) and the judges could back it up too. Fairly competent (so, had all the skills, landed them without falling) compulsory routines that we would expect to get an 8.5 or so today got low to mid 7s. Today to get a low to mid 7 in some compulsory meets you need two falls, a missing element, or making the elements in a barely minimum way.
And that's how it used to be in compulsories (and any level really). I can definitely remember an 8 being good and a 9 being rare, like just a few in a meet at all across all kids and levels. It wasn't rare to win or place high having gotten all 8s and 32-34. I think that in some ways, through the wide amount of information available now and also the overall rise of USA Gymnastics in general, compulsories have gotten a lot better, and a lot more competitive. But I also think some of it is just score inflation. It used to be that some kids didn't make it to states or didn't even get the very minimum scores to move up despite having the skills. Now I feel like it is just a formality even when they don't make their beam dismount, etc. So I'm not sure about that. But I will say some of the compulsories you see today that are so polished were unheard of when I was a kid. If you were that good you definitely moved up, even if (insert whatever excuse). You just did. But times were different and overall it was less competitive so I understand why this phenomenon is happening now. And I'm not complaining, overall the rise of USA gymnastics as a whole, AT EVERY LEVEL, is almost mind boggling when you think about it. It's incredible. So, I can't complain.