When Olga Korbut captured the world's imagination on her way to three gold medals at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, she pioneered the essence of modern gymnastics:

enchanting artistry married seamlessly with breathtaking, daring acrobatics.

The diminutive Belarusian holds the distinction of performing the first ever back somersault on the beam in international competition, but it was as much the mesmerising charisma contained in her performances that won Korbut a legion of fans and the nickname the "Sparrow from Minsk". Four years later in Montreal Nadia Comaneci made history as the first woman to score a perfect 10. With her trademark verve, graceful delivery and unflickering precision, the 14-year-old from Romania set the bar to which future generations of gymnasts would aspire.

Watching the 2014 World Gymnastics Championships in Nanning, China, the contrast couldn't be more stark. While I would defy anyone to view the likes of US gymnast Simone Biles, who took an impressive four golds, with anything short of awestruck admiration, one can't help but feel that, in the pursuit of ever greater degrees of difficulty, some of the magic has been lost.

Bruno Grandi, president of the International Gymnastics Federation, is said to be calling for an overhaul of the sport's code of points. Grandi, who famously lobbied for the current open-ended system to reward more difficulty, would appear to have done a U-turn and now asserts that difficulty should take a back seat to artistry.

He is reported to have said the gymnastics he saw in Nanning was "too much of its acrobatic part and not too much artistry" adding: "Gymnastics is artistic gymnastics, the definition I don't want to lose."

I couldn't agree more. To put it in context, the iconic "perfect 10" disappeared with the introduction of a new scoring system in 2006. Each mark now consists the sum of the open-ended difficulty (D) score - where gymnasts can theoretically stack their routine to obtain unlimited points - and execution (E) which is out of 10.00.

Few gymnasts have come close to scoring 10 for execution since this method debuted, with the focus instead weighed towards raising the difficulty of routines, arguably at expense of artistic finesse.

The current crop of the world class elite gymnasts fit into two distinct camps: powerhouse and classical. Their physiques - and core attributes - contrast in much the same way as sprinters and long distance runners. Powerhouse gymnasts are compact, explosive balls of muscle, while those deemed classical, leaner with a balletic poise.

Biles, with her punchy style and seemingly gravity-defying feats, would fall into the former category, while 2008 Olympic all-around champion Nastia Liukin is a good illustration of the graceful, elegant lines of the latter.

Some would argue that the higher ratio of powerhouse gymnasts in ascendancy is a direct by-product of the present scoring system. Occasionally, the classical gymnast will still win out - as Liukin did over her US compatriot Shawn Johnson in Beijing - but that is increasingly the exception rather than the rule.

The rising star of British gymnastics, Claudia Fragapane, is another, like Biles, in the powerhouse vein. There is no denying her formidable talent: the opening tumbling pass of her floor routine is simply jaw-dropping.

While I'm loath to be seen as critical of the 16-year-old teenager, there were times, as I watched Fragapane win four gold medals for England at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, that it felt a box-ticking exercise with the token handful of artistic moves shoe-horned in among an eye-watering raft of difficulty. It would be good to see her blossom in this area.

It is unlikely the existing code of points will be overhauled before the 2015 World Gymnastics Championships arrive in Glasgow next October, but one would hope a year from now we will see the first budding shoots of emphasis being placed on the spellbinding artistry that not only gave the sport its name, but brought it global fame.