In reply to fatchild:
>"There must 1000s of other examples, going both ways."
An obvious solution I would support is to have oscillating grades.
In Olympia years all grades could be increased by one, reverting back to their original grade the following year.
In football World Cup years all grades could be decreased by one, similarly, reverting back to their original grade the following year.
In doing this, all grades would still be correct most of the time, however if you ever felt a grade was incorrect, it would be a simple matter for waiting for the year in the cycle which suited you, in much the same way you might save a route for better conditions.
In these days of instantly updating databases, there is no technical reason for not implementing such a worthy system. Of course, the old punks that run this sport will never agree to anything that doesn't involve the placing of bolts (or similar) to sort a grade.