No, the purpose is to measure exactly what the skater did on the ice within the parameters allowed.
Yes, and the program with no 3-jump combination was in the parameters allowed.
Almost nobody ever skates a program perfectly. Competitors need to be rewarded for what they in fact did on the ice, not what they COULD do or what they sometimes have done in the past.
Which brings us right back to the point - CoP does NOT currently reward difficulty as it should (nor quality, in terms of mistakes on elements). It rewards quantity moreso. How much "busy work" can you cram into your program without losing focus? While that is certainly something which is measurable, for the most part, it's not always a valid assessment of which skater actually gave a better performance, athletically or otherwise. It's also not a good basis for a sport or art that many people really care about.
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