Difficulty vs. Score in Scoring Systems

[tada]

The thread about incentive and mercy in scoring systems kind of lead me to ask a question of my own that I've always pondered: To what degree should the difficulty you play on affect the scores you can get? The way I see it, the spectrum is something like this:

Code: Select all

- Complete overhaul of the scoring
| system for higher difficulties. 
| 
|
|
| Some compensation for higher difficulties.
|
|
|
| No obvious compensation by the game per se,
| but slightly higher scores may be possible
| due to more bullets/enemy life.
|
|
|
- Regressive; higher scores on easier difficulties.

Examples of each, since it looked aesthetically unpleasing on the spectrum itself:
- Complete overhaul: Mushihime-sama, Original vs. Maniac.
- Some compensation: Touhou games, which typically award more points for icons, have higher bonus multipliers, and more for higher difficulties.
- No obvious compensation: A lot of games.
- Regressive: By the looks of the high score list, Blue Wish Resurrection. Also pretty much any shmup where upping the difficulty simply makes the bullets go faster.

[BulletMagnet]

I always sort of liked the idea of scores being potentially higher if played on harder modes or the like...gives you that extra bit of incentive to improve your skills enough to be able to hit those higher numbers. Not necessarily a huge difference, but notable...Karous is probably a decent example of this.