Well, the thing with Barrett is that he isn't a puppeteer in the professional sense. While he does a good job one of the things I've noticed is that from the very start he tends to hold the puppet lower than John or Stephanie or any of the others. That means that to see the puppet you sort of have to look down whereas the others hold them so that the puppet head is more or less even with their head which allows the audience to easily focus on the puppet. Whereas when Barrett holds it a bit lower you're more drawn to his face because thats where the voice is coming from.
And hang on, when did you win the discus?