Well I consider myself a top player so I still think that Tommi's NV is about right.
I personally am not great at Pole Vault, I can hit moles but I don't generate the same kind of speed I do on other events to make a realistic attempt at high clearances on the first couple of rounds. I can hit 5.92 semi-regularly but most of the time I fail before this (without moles the difference in score is so small it doesn't matter...) on the first and second rounds.
I agree a good PV player may hit a perfect take off around 75% of the time. That's still only 3 out of 4 tho so in theory not many 8k moles.
I think that if there is a player out there (reading this) that almost always gets into the 8k repeat then they should say something. I don't think there is, especially on MAME.
You can practice timing all you like but the simple fact is it's almost a split second thing whether or not you hit it or (on the first round) get 980 speed or overshoot. Even if your timing is great.. On archery for example, you can hit the first lot of targets all perfect (say on a wind of +3 - so you shoot as the blue segment passes the lower edge of the square target frame) but the damn thing moves. I'm sure of that. It's not the same round after round. At least it doesn't appear to be. This applies to Pole too. 7 games out of 10, if you hit the button as the right-hand edge of the pole passes the right-hand edge of the referee you hit the board perfectly, but this does seem to change from game to game - ie in some games you rack up points, in others it's all a bit sloppy.
I know you're aware of this, but a lot of records seen in arcade were 'team' records. Two people running, one jumping/breathing etc. Tommi is the top player here, his NV should stand, or at least an NV with similar scores.
5.94 and 5.95 is RARE, comparitively. The take off speeds needed are hard to hit on later rounds, and they were when I played back in the day too on the real thing. Yes the records relfect hundreds of games and yes occasionally someone will nail a 5.95. But out of 20 games (and including inps from here that I've watched) it just doesn't happen enough to warrant that being the standard.
As discussed previously, with respect to the records here, it's not even an issue. My score of 439k is made without a SINGLE mole throughout. Tommi's record of 447 doesnt have that many. No 8k's if I remember rightly. And certainly no 5.95.
After all the rambling my point is that you CAN'T expect every machine out there to be maxed out. It doesn't happen. I'm sure both me AL and Tommi hit three perfects on archery at some point way back when but it is incredibly rare.
I know to beat the 538k by Kelly %&$W&^%£&*£%^ that mole points are essential (especially by that point of the game) but he must have hit LOTS to get his score to get to 5th skeets and fail where he did. No one comes close on here to be honest. The only way that record will be beaten (here) is by someone getting to 9.80 horse. Prove me wrong - but it's got very little to do with how many extra 8k's are scored on earlier rounds from inps here. Just my opinion, but the top 3 players aren't consistent enough when the big points are available
. Set up buttons 1 and 3 as autofire buttons. A delay of 3 seems to work best for the pole vault. Then hold both buttons down when you need the extra speed 
