i understand it better vs i understood it better

Some examples from the web:

• I understand it better with an otter than with a woman.
• I think if I can see it all in one glance, I might understand it better.
• I certainly feel, having read his report, that I understand it very much better.
• You know, so I can better understand its effects.
• I understand it a whole lot better than you do.
• There's too many unusual circumstances at work here - I want to try to understand it better before we send our people in.
• If I said I was leaving for your sake, I thought maybe you could understand it better.
• To understand it better, we did a CT scan of the exoskeleton and showed that they can compress their body by over 40 percent.
• I am making an artificial body not to improve on that work of God, but to understand it better.
• This clearly means that, before we begin discussing the Arab world and offering solutions, we must understand it better.
• I understand better than anyone that you're afraid of your father.
• I understand better than anyone else and you know that.
• There is a saying in my local dialect which I will say in German because you speak German and will therefore understand it better: 'Gutheit ist ein Stück von Dummheit'.In other words, we are sometimes too efficient for our own good.
• Meeting alternately in Europe and in countries of the ACP region in turn allows members of the Assembly to familiarise themselves with the situation on the ground and understand it better.
• But seeing you, I understand better.
• I understand far better than you would ever believe, honey...
• I understand that better than anyone else.
• But I understand you better than I thought.
• I understand... better than anyone.
• I think I understand them better than you.

Some examples from the web:

• My mother understood it better that anyone and yet it was very hard.
• Sometimes, though, I wish I understood you better.
• I think I understood you better as the screaming eagle.
• I understood that better when she said it.
• We weren't friends, but I understood her better than the rest.
• I understood that better when he was on the ground screaming,
• I never got caught because I understood building plans better than anybody else.
• Roosevelt would have understood better than anyone the necessity for trying something different.
• And he understood better than anybody how untenable that situation could become.
• Little by little I re-structured my life and understood better the reasons for the separation.
• Father understood better than anyone the danger of losing those values which we hold most precious.
• Someone who understood him better than me.
• She understood me better than anyone.
• You always understood him better than anyone.
• In this country and in Britain, magnetism is understood better by children before they've been to school than afterwards, OK?
• It is shameful that the huge majority of the Mediterranean fishermen themselves have understood better than the Council the urgent need to regulate these fishing grounds, despite the price that they will have to pay.
• He understood my power better than I do.
• Exchange of information on these measures will help them to be better understood.
• We also wanted market failures to be better understood.
• If you better understood Samaritan, you would know it employs a private army to do its bidding.