Player average ratings

It may just be me but over the last few versions of FM (mainly since FM06) I've noticed player ratings on general have decreased. It used to be pretty standard for players to get around an average of 7 for the season - average quality premiership players (e.g. John O'Shea) with better quality players such as Ronaldo, Rooney etc averaging 7.50.

Now with the decimal system it very often seems like most of the team get around 7ish and many below 7. Its also very unusual to see anything above 8.

So a couple of questions:

1) Have the ratings been tweaked in the last few years downwards? If so, what is an average performance - I used to consider 5 a poor game, 6 just below average with 7 being an acceptable level, 8 being good and 9 excellent. Anyone any thoughts on this?

2) In previous versions obviously we have not seen the decimal but presumably the match engine was using decimals in the background. Can SI / someone in the know confirm that, in previous versions if a player was getting 6.5, 6.6, 6.7, 6.8, 6.9 this would be rounded up to 7 (with 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4 being rounded down) or would it be displayed as a 6?

Thanks

Tom