The use of headgear became mandatory in 1984, yes, which was a decision made by the IOC a few months previous to that year's Olympics. The current scoring system can be traced back to 1984, as well, as the AIBA president at the time, Colonel Don Hull, made the announcement that his next "project" was to come up with a system that showed the on-going scoring on a round-by-round basis. Hull's "project" turned into the system we see nowadays pretty much, and contrary to popular belief, it wasn't instituted because of the Roy Jones fight in '88, as the announcment (by new AIBA president, Anwar Chowdhry) on the new scoring system had officially came out a few days before that gold medal matchup in Seoul. The pillows around the hands and head we see nowadays could be traced back to 1988, though, I would think, as immediately after those Games, Samaranch had basically come out and stated that boxing was too dangerous (and corrupt), and if it didn't find measures to correct those things, there was a good chance it would be discontinued as an Olympic sport. New gloves and headgear were made by a German company (Bayer AG, I think it was), and the result of that was that punches had significant less impact when landing on the boxers (something like 50% less impact for the headgear, and 20% for the gloves). Bad offciating and judging goes way back...Don't remeber his name off the top, but there was that Japanese fighter who was blatantly robbed in Rome in 1960. 1968 had the horrible DQ of Al Robinson in the gold medal bout with a Mexican opponent in Mexico. 1972 had the infamous Minter/Kottysch robbery in favour of the home country's fighter, as well as the Reggie Jones one again his Russian opponent, which nearly caused a riot. 1976 had the horrible robbery of Pedro Gamarro in the gold medal bout against Bachfeld, which again, nearly caused a riot as the fans in Montreal booed for like 15 minutes straight and also pelted the ring with garbage and whatnot. Etc., etc., etc. Amatuer boxing at the international level (even local or national) has always produced more than it's share of head scratching decisions and calls.
"At our world championships in Moscow, in September, 1989, we will introduce electronic scoring. Each judge will have two buttons in front of him, each representing a boxer. For each scoring blow a judge will push a button, and that punch will be shown on the scoreboard next to the judge's number. For the first time in boxing the public will see blow-by-blow scoring." - Part of the statement made by then AIBA president, Anwar Chowdhry, in announcing the change in the amateur scoring system and made on Sept 27, 1988. Quote printed in various sources the next day, including the L.A. Times, Sept 28th, 1988 Roy Jones' fight against Park Si Hun happened on the evening of Oct 1st, 1988.
As far as I can remember about the development in Germany: In the late seventies and early eighties we had smear campaigns against boxing. Along with that there were tendencies to "humanize" the sport (= abolish the status of being a fighting sport with full contact). Many people wanted to banish it at all. The "Zeitgeist" did not like boxing then... It became better when Henry Maske and others were big attractions. But nevertheless I think, that the supporters of boxing were too defensive in the discussions.
