It's not conspiracy theory when I'm asking for people's experiences. It's a question.

You're acting like Niantic never takes advantage of us, when they regularly do. Such a change isn't beyond them. Alternatively, you may he arguing that they're fantastic programmers, and their programmers always do things that make sense. Again, we often see buggy behavior and shoddy dev work. None of this is beyond them - accidentally or purposely. I'm simply looking for experiences from others.

I'm also noting that I hit almost all small excellent circles. My experience has nothing to do with throwing worse. Around 9 / 10 of my throws are always excellent - in this event and always. It just seems like it took quite a few more balls to make the catches. I'm looking to see if others experienced something similar. I've seen similar things on some Facebook groups and local chats, so I'd love if we could take a more scientific approach to this. That's the point of the thread.