Just so. :yes:
This is what I think the “philosophy” of the CoP should be. There is a certain base level of expectation for every skater competing at the senior championship level. Ladies at this level should all be able to present all the triples through the triple Lutz (correct edge), and men should show mastery of all six triple jumps. Besides that, all senior level skaters should be required to show competency in each of the three types of spins, with variations and combinations, as well as a full complement of steps, turns, and unscored moves in the field, including spirals for ladies.
As the IJS puts it, they should show a mastery of "the vocabulary of figure skating."
To fulfill this aim the CoP should be weighted and structured, in so far as possible, in such a way that skaters who cannot attain this minimum content will not be in podium contention.
Now we have to decide the medals. To win the contest, a skater must show more than the minimum. There are various avenues available for this. A man can do a quad, a lady can do a triple Axel or a difficult triple-triple. Alternatively, a skater can try to soar above his fellows in terms of quality – don’t just do a triple flip and a sitspin, do an exceptionally good flip and sitspin (hence GOEs).
Or a skater can try to stand out by putting greater effort into choreography and musical interpretation (hence the PCSs). However, in my opinion, the structure of the CoP should not encourage skaters to substitute these medal-winning extras for basic competency.
This does put a burden on the judges – is this guy’s quad worth more than that guy’s choreography or the other guy’ spins and moves in the field? But that is why we have judges.
(Just my opinion – Mr. Cinquanta’s may differ.)
It actually is a good "philosophy." And, I think it is similar to that of the current system or the COP if you will. The difference is more or less about working/operational definition (e.g., "present," "mastery," etc.) and implementation of it, which is manifest in some specific rules.
Also, they need to take into consideration how it affects the skaters who, under the old regime, did alright with incorrect/unsatisfactory techniques. Commercial viability of the new figure skating scenery is important, as well. Hence, we have gotten the COP that was and still is a compromise of them in transition. That is how I see it.
And, it is evolving. The pace of it will pick up as the new generation of skaters are taking over the main stage.
The direction of it, as you suggest, is toward the idea of "sufficient" technical competence and artistry. Then again, the level of sufficiency is another question to be examined and answered because you do not want to marginalize or punish too heavily "artists" who may be insufficient, for instance, in triple toe loop -- it is not just for the sake of artistry but also for commercial viability. That is, you may not want to set the minimum competence too high.
So, I do not believe that there is a perfect solution. They just need to find gradually a solution which most find most agreeable.
I am not criticizing you. In fact, I most definitely agree with you in philosophy. I, though, may prefer a different way of implementation through scoring, GoE, say minimum requirement of 4 different triples for ladies with the mandatory inclusion of either Lutz or Flip (bonus points when the 4 are executed correctly), etc. What I like about the current system or implementation is its flexibility.
) I think the COP is getting right now. One element should not be the be all and end all - we saw it with Joubert/Buttle in 2008 (the correct result) and again in Vancouver IMO the correct result, Evgeni was slightly off - his jump went up all wonky, it's testament to the incredible skater he is that he landed those jumps on one foot. So what did the system do? Well there were two programmes that were pretty evenly matched technically, one did have a harder element in it which would tip the scales in that favour, but for the fact the overall quality of the other programme was better - so the sacles tipped back (only by a small margin) to give the win to the "cleaner" programme.
