It happened almost two decades ago, and only the competitors or coaches who attended events before 2005 will probably remember the change that impacted the sport until now. It was very little language that changed after the FAI Outdoor World Championship 2004 and impacted the leaderboards of world meets and national championships into the presence.

The example of an OmniSkore scoresheet before the change demonstrates the impact of an infringement ("bust"). The judged team completed 15 points within the same working time of 35 seconds and ended up with a score of 13 points for the round. The majority of the judges saw an infringement at the 13th scoring point, which did not count, and an additional 1-point deduction was applied for punishment. Two judges also saw one more infringement, which added another two point deductions to the total damage, and an 11-point score was their result. The majority of the judging panel agreed on only one infringement, and the team added 13 points for this specific round to their total on the leaderboard.

The teams knew that the damage of a penalty could have a significant impact on the outcome of the competition, and they made serious efforts to avoid any infringements of the rules by showing clearly the correct execution of the formations and maneuvers to the judges.

However, there was the controversial discussion when a group of teams, competitors and officials lobbied for the change that would remove the additional 1-point penalty after an infringement. They thought that the punishment was too harsh and held the teams back from moving faster through the sequences for higher scores by disregarding potential infringements and moving forward through questionable or even obvious situations. It did not take too long after the rule change until the teams and competitors learned that disregarding potential infringements and accepting the new 1-point deduction gives them the higher results that the supporters of the rule change were aiming for. All teams applied the new freedom as good as possible, and the leaderboards have had a different look ever since. The 4-way Open Class leaderboard of the FAI Dubai Mondial 2012 demonstrates the difference a few years after the change.

The second new rule had an impact on the logistics of the competitions, as well, as the additional slow-motion option slowed down the time frame until the scores would be posted. It became not unusual that teams had to perform the next round before they would know the scores of previous rounds. The delay in publishing scores has been resolved well enough ever since, while the red markings on the scoreboards are still a very common picture.

Coaches Gary Smith and Silvanus Williams were witnessing the changes. First they won the last world championship title before the first change with DeLand Majik in Rijeka 2004, then continued as coaches with the new rules. Gary Smith adapted very quickly and successfully to the new performance and judging environment, as he won the next outdoor world championship title with DeLand Fire in Gera 2006, the first event with the application of the new rules. The full-time teams and competitors of the presence have learned and trained fast and clean performance with advanced training techniques. Arizona Airspeed had only two red markings on their scoresheet at Crystal Coast, three at the USPA Nationals, two at the indoor world cup.