I'd also say that the gulf between levels was a lot less as little as 20 years ago. Players had only just turned professional, so levels of fitness, skills, etc weren't orders of magnitude greater for the top clubs as they were for clubs one or two levels below them. Now, could you *seriously* think that any club apart from a couple of championship teams could offer any sort of resistance to even struggling Premiership teams like we were last season? Much as I love to see Quins running in tries, posting cricket scores on lower level teams doesn't really appeal to me.