I recently got my first returns from cgc and I had some of the same concerns, I submitted 4 cards 3 of them got nines and one of them got 8.5 due to surface. I looked at all four with a jewelers loupe (10x,20x,30x), before and after they got graded and I can't see why some of them had 9.5 surface subgrades and one had 8.5. I see no scratches in any of them and the only difference in one of them (9.5 surface) is that the texture pops out/contrasts more than the other 3 cards (9.5, 9, 8.5 surface sub grades).