My gut feeling is that the judges knew that Joubert had not done enough technically and therefore to keep him in second they had to bolster his PCS.
Wait, what? Are you implying he should not have been second?! He had 6 points technically over Johnny Weir, who ended up third, so a couple of points off Joubert's PCS would not have made a difference. And as much as I love Johnny, there is no way his performance was better than Brian's. Brian fought with passion and confidence, and Johnny had a "Dear God, please let this end" expression on his face throughout his FS. I am proud of him for pulling through, but he was kind of lucky to get third. There is no way Brian should have been below him, sorry.
. So many skaters made a botch job of their technical elements, perhaps botch job is too strong (except for Verner), but made mistakes that lost them major points e.g. Joubert, Takahashi, Verner, Weir (though i think the downgrade of the quad was completely wrong) and others, that the judges knew it boiled down to the PCS. In order to ensure the IMO correct result of Joubert with the silver medal overall they inflated his PCS. When Joubert skated Buttle was still to go (and first after the SP) the Judges IMO boosted Joubert's PCS to ensure he would slip into 1st place with Buttle left to go and the last skater, if he made mistakes they'd left joubert with a comfortable lead to ensure his win, if he skated lights out (as he did) he would give them enough on the technical and the PCS to give him the title.
Yes that's exactly what I meant (teach me to post before i've had a full cup of coffee!) - thanks for clarifying it for me!
It was widely documented that Plushenko and Mishin thought Stephane was the greatest threat to Evgeny during the 2006 Olympic season. Also, during Stephane's Olympic LP video, you can clearly see Plushenko and Mishin sitting in the kiss and cry area watching his entire program.
