The major cause of ratings deflation is when players leave the pool having gained several hundred rating points from where they entered.
For me my biggest memory is the tournament AFTER the best tournament of my life (where I scored 3.5/5 with two master wins (both with black!), one expert draw and an A player loss and a B player win - it was one of those double-sided Sicilians where both of you are balanced on the edge of the precipice and it's NOT going to be a draw) and reached my lifetime high of 1905 only to lose in consecutive rounds to two 1400 rated brothers (juniors) who went to 2100 and 1950 respectively before deciding they enjoyed playing soccer better.
Net gain for me after the two events was about 20 pts...both brothers contributed a lot to ratings deflation in Vancouver when they left!
I haven't finished my analysis of the numbers but like what I see so far.