Okay, well first your are correct. You cannot compare scores year to year. After our "breakout" year in 2014, scores have needed to be toned down. Understand that the Cavaliers scores were reflected from those of the Cadets and SCV. Obviously, the gap shows how far ahead or behind you are. In this case, the Cavaliers were about 3 points behind SCV and barely ahead of the Cadets. Why? Because the Cavaliers didn't put out a better product than SCV did in the judges eyes.
The blue knights did not get insulted by the judges. They were given an opinion about their show. I wouldn't consider any top 12 corps to have been "insulted". With the Cadets, their show was probably the most difficult. When you cannot execute your difficult music and drill and guard work, then you can't even begin to be scoring high. Lucky for the Cadets, they actually pulled it off.