[shabadoop]

They all meet a baseline standard, it's just some people get machines that are above those baselines. Yes, sometimes the "good" machine from a previous generation will outperform the baseline from the next generation in a given benchmark, but that's an inevitability of having machines that outperform the baselines of their generation.

[Pacabel]

This really depends on where you set the baseline standard.

You may see the worst-performing variants of a given model as defining the baseline, with some being above the baseline.

But it's perfectly legitimate to define the baseline at the best-performing variants of a given model, with some unfortunately being below the baseline.

Personally, I prefer to set expectations high, and define the baseline based on the best that has been achieved so far. The worst-performing variant from 2014 should still be expected to exceed, or at the very worst be equal to, the best-performing variant from 2013.