For the All Around to truly be "All Around", each event should have the same kind of scoring potential, and this code did not do that. Bars had a much higher scoring potential than floor and vault. The top score on bars was more than a point higher than the top score on floor.

I agree with you that the 2008 code was imbalanced, but I'd like to offer a different take on it. IMO, mathematically, it doesn't matter if a typical bars score is 20 points and floor is only 15. Everyone in that scenario still gets an inflated 5 points on their score for bars.

Where it matters, imo, is score differentiation between athletes. If an amazing Amanar scores 15.5 (out of 15.8 currently), and a subpar amanar is still a 15.3... there's a serious issue if the gap between stellar and "decently strong" beam workers is over a point. (I say "subpar Amanar" in that obviously it's still killer that you've twisting that out, but imo it's criminal how closely Biles & Paseka have scored on that comparatively).

In that scenario, the vault-heavy AAer is penalized as compared to the beam-heavy AAer.

Idk if that makes sense at all... it's kind of late at night. Anyway, my point is that the 2008 code was definitely imbalanced towards bars but not a direct result of event maximums/explicit scoring potentials.