TrumpetVinny, think you are right about the levels.. but I think you might have it backwards.. it might be safe to assume that as the season gets farther along, the "harder" groups/shows with harder difficulty levels and the appropriate sections/staff/etc will start to pick up steam in scoring

True. But, and I'm not sure on this, I believe since season 1 I've had all my difficulties set to the max. One would assume that if my spending and planning increase as the season went along that I would also see a boost in gains; however, as far as I can tell my gains stay the same or slow down.

Yes my groups gain about the same (if not slightly more toward the end of the season) throughout the entire season when I used max difficulties in season 10. Now I use mid difficulty because I am still not certain that difficulty effects score gains very much....