Suit changes, gender, and regression analyses?

Consider this year's SEC winning times vs. the NCAA record times: 400 Yard IM WomenNCAA: N 3:58.23 2/26/2010 Julia Smit, Stanford 1 Beisel, Elizabeth FR Florida-FL 4:03.27 3:58.35 (+.12) 400 Yard IM Men NCAA: N 3:35.98 3/27/2009 Tyler Clary, Michigan 1 Solaeche Gomez, Ed Florida-FL 3:47.99 3:43.57 A (+7.59) Hypothesis: the change in men's legal swimming suits has had a much greater effect than the change in women's legal swimming suits. Is this true? I don't know. However, I do think it is possible to find out. Have any of our mathematically astute forumites yet attempted a regression analysis to see how much the change in suit technology has affected women and men swimmers, respectively? This may be a cherry-picked example, but it looks as if the current crop of legal suits for women have resulted in virtually no change in the 400 IM. In men, on the other hand, the change looks to be about 7.5 seconds. Granted, you can't make too many assumptions comparing NCAA records (with full body suits) vs. SEC championship times (in the new suits) in just one event. However, it's now been two years since the B70 and other body kayak flotation devices have been illegalized for both genders, and replaced by the respective FINA approved garments we are now allowed to wear. There have been reams of times recorded in college and masters databases, ripe for the plucking! Surely someone out there has already been (or could be cajoled into) crunching sufficient quantities of data to come up with some rough guidelines for the impact the suit change has had! Surely I am not the only one hoping to apportion my performance declines according to 1) the toll of years, and 2) the change in suit technology. In my age group, here are the times in the 400 IM in 2010 (body kayaks) vs. 2011 (jammers for men; new short john legal body suits for women)--note, I highlighted in red those who made the list both years in the same age group, allowing for a better person-to-person comparison: MEN 400 Individual Medley SCY Men 55-59 (2010) 1 Michael T Mann 55 CMS Colorado 4:28.69 2 Donald B Gilchrist 56 NCMS North Carolina 4:40.65 3 Phil L Dodson 57 IM Illinois 4:45.42 4 Bob Yant 56 IM Illinois 4:47.76 5 Jim Clemmons 59 MAM Pacific 4:48.86 6 Peter M Guadagni 55 WCM Pacific 4:49.17 7 Neil R Wasserman 55 O*H* Lake Erie 4:50.68 8 Stephen D Kevan 55 OREG Oregon 4:52.39 9 Thomas G Bliss 55 ORLM Florida 4:54.56 10 Jimmy Welborn 55 RATS Southeastern 4:54.94 400 Individual Medley SCY Men 55-59 (2011) 1 Michael T Mann 56 CMS Colorado 4:30.56 2 Rick Colella 59 PNA Pacific Northwest 4:35.84 3 Timothy M Shead 58 GOLD Florida Gold Coast 4:45.05 4 Donald B Gilchrist 57 NCMS North Carolina 4:50.58 5 Neil R Wasserman 55 O*H* Lake Erie 4:53.22 6 Peter M Guadagni 56 WCM Pacific 4:56.53 7 Paul G Karas 55 MICH Michigan 4:57.64 8 Mark Montgomery 55 NOVA Southern Pacific 4:59.58 9 Phil L Dodson 58 IM Illinois 5:02.66 10 David C Bright 58 NEM New England 5:05.44 WOMEN 400 Individual Medley SCY Women 55-59 (2010) 1 Laura B Val 58 TAM Pacific 5:03.92 2 Nancy Steadman Martin 55 GSM New Jersey 5:09.76 3 Lo D Knapp 55 UTAH Utah 5:17.95 4 Camille W Thompson 55 PNA Pacific Northwest 5:28.88 5 Shirley A Loftus-Charley 58 VMST Virginia 5:29.09 6 Charlotte M Davis 59 PNA Pacific Northwest 5:33.04 7 Nancy Kryka 55 MINN Minnesota 5:36.70 8 Catherine K Kohn 56 SLAM Ozark 5:40.95 9 Ronda S Nisman 55 MOST South Texas 5:41.99 10 Barbara Protzman 55 GOLD Florida Gold Coast 5:50.96 400 Individual Medley SCY Women 55-59 (2011) 1 Nancy Steadman Martin 56 GSM New Jersey 5:17.93 2 Shirley A Loftus-Charley 59 VMST Virginia 5:28.24 3 Elaine S Valdez 55 MOST South Texas 5:29.46 4 Pat A Sargeant 57 GOLD Florida Gold Coast 5:34.59 5 Evie S Lynch 58 PHX Arizona 5:39.49 6 Nancy Kryka 56 MINN Minnesota 5:47.26 7 Mary M Welsh 57 TCAM Pacific 5:54.69 8 Margaret Hair 55 HMS Inland Northwest 5:59.80 9 Barbara Protzman 56 GOLD Florida Gold Coast 6:02.14 10 Karen Bierwert 58 NEM New England 6:06.35 I concede this does little to prove or disprove my hypothesis. If I am looking at the times correctly, only one 55-59 TT swimmer improved times between 2010 and 2011--Shirley. The variation in declines shown by all the others of both genders was quite large, from Michael Mann's less than 2 seconds, to Phil Dodson's over 17. All sorts of non-swimming-related factors can play a role here, which is why to get meaningful results, lots and lots of results have to be subjected to what I think Chris Stevenson called a "regression analysis" to draw even quasi-reliable inferences. Is there someone out there, perhaps a retired math professor with a touch of Asperger's who shares my fascination with this dead-horse-beaten topic, who would be willing to perform just such a regression analysis and share the results on this thread? I am tempted to add a poll so that we can each vote according to what we want to believe, only to have this subjected to the cold hard reality of scientific inquiry! Oh, hell. I will add such a poll, at the considerable risk of being drubbed off these forums for the foreseeable future for the sin of trollish monotony.