Drugs and gear. It's as simple as that.

Drugs. Am I the only one who noticed the 15yr olds on the gear? Or is everyone else deaf and dumb in the locker room?

Disgusted at my own sport.

There are plenty of us that dont deal with it. Thats why there are natural meets. Im 18 and happy to be natural.

It's not the drugs, that's just an easy out for everyone. There are plenty of lifters out there that really don't touch the stuff and plenty more that don't even use gear. So it has to be something else, maybe hard training and desire.
Some people or better yet a lot of people live for the sport and care about nothing else. They are the one that go to the gym and train hard and long to achieve there goals. It is pretty bad when you see little kids and women that have no base training come in to competition wearing the best of the best gear out there. That tells me right there that every person on this planet knows about the gear and doesn't want to work hard enough to get there base strength up first.
Just my opinon and nothing more, but think these are the ones that won't be around the sport long.
They will soon learn that they will have to take time at some point and train or they will reach there peak in the gear and have no where to go.
I bust my ass in the gym every day and I am now 50 years old, I work hard to get what little I do get, and I do so knowing no matter what you do people will always find a way to run you down,
so its like water off of a ducks back to me, I train hard and I do it only for me,only because thats what I like doing. Now days if you say you play any type of sports or lift weights then you are automatically labeled. There is no money in weight lifting so I opinon is that you should be doing it for the fun of competition and the love of the sport or you are just fooling yourself. After all what is the percentage of people in this sport actually make a nichel at it? Chuck Trosper was telling me last weekend about some of the places that he has gotten to travel to with a team and his face would just light up when he was talking about it. Thats what its about, not just a trophy but accomplishing your goals.

My opinion...Gear is the #1 reason, by far! Todays lifters are not much different then those in the early 1990's, but gear has changed BIG time. Drugs have always been around. Yes, a few new training methods have come about, but take a look at PLUSA magazine Top 100 list, the deadlift is pretty much the same, it can't be helped much with gear, and it shows.

That said, I still respect any person who can put a huge amount of weight on their back to squat, or to press...its still hard work, and takes serious training.

With all the new gear, Elite totals should be moved up some... (that is another thread) lol...

deadlift still went up

Yes, Andy Bolton rasied the all time high, he is an awesome lifter. But not much as has changed with the deadlift like the squat & bench, not even close. Take a look at Powerlifting USA Nov 2007 issue, page 27, the great Larry Pacifico touches on this. He states "They say there is a suit out there that improves the deadlifts, but I don't think so. Otherwise we would be seeing common 900-1200 pound deadlifts".

If I'm not mistaken, Bolton has said that his grip is what is keeping him back on the deadlift.

I believe that to be true, after seeing video of the 1003 lift. Strong and fast off the floor, but near lock out, it look like the grip was becoming a problem. I think grip problems are fairly common at world class weights. There is a video on the web of Tom Eiseman deadlifting around 750@181. Its a nice lift, but he had trouble holding on at lockout. That guy has been around a long time.