Tangentially related to this thread: the recordings I listen to on YouTube from Romania all adhere to the older practice (still preserved, I think, in Greek monasteries) of chanting each troparion of the Anabathmoi twice (A, A, B, B, Glory, C, Both now, C) rather than the modern parish practice of chanting each troparion once (A, B, Glory; both now, C). In contrast the tradition in the Middle East has deteriorated even further, where the Kathismata and Anabathmoi are often read instead of chanted (a deplorable practice which has also spread to many Antiochian parishes in the USA). Some other examples of "negative evolution" where concessions became common practice, even encoded in the Typikon:
• The modern Greek practice of displacing the reading of the Gospel to the end of the Katavasia of the 8th Ode, immediately before the Magnificat
• The modern Greek practice of displacing the Lamentations on Holy Friday evening until after the Canon