Goal scoring in the World Cup Finals
I decided to look at whether the 2002 ball had any impact on goal scoring. I think that the answer is "no" subject to a caveat. Here's the post-war record.

matches goals goals/match
2006 64 146 2.28
2002 64 160 2.50
1998 64 171 2.67
1994 52 139 2.67
1990 52 114 2.19
1986 52 132 2.54
1982 54 148 2.74
1978 38 102 2.68
1974 38 97 2.55
1970 32 95 2.97
1966 32 83 2.59
1962 32 87 2.72
1958 35 126 3.60
1954 26 140 5.38
1950 24 95 3.96
Avg 2.94

The caveat is that the matches between the "big" countries may have more goals. The averages are brought up by the persistence of blow-out matches against outclassed teams.