Well, she didn't have a "huge meltdown": she skated a clean SP that included a 3Lz+3T and made only one big mistake in the FS (the fall)+one UR and almost two-footed 3F. She finished off the podium and 20 points behind Radionova because all the other girls skated almost perfect programs and didn't make mistakes: Julia's performance was not disastrous at all, the result actually was (for her standards)... But I agree with the rest of your post.
Few junior programs are as strong as Russia's so i think that of equal or greater importance is Julia almost beating radionova a jr worlds.