Your implication is that others can't rely or rely less on reputation to put them in medal contention on their worst days. Well, this season there were quite a few skaters with a "reputation," both male and female, who got top PCS marks when their performances were less than stellar and got a boost in placement, but their name wasn't Yu-Na Kim.
At Worlds last year, she had one of her "bad days" and she got a 65 in the PCS portion for her FS. No one else in the ladies was coming close to that range during the Grand Prix this season. In fact, hitting 60 was already a feat. As a Olympic champ, she does have an advantage over others in terms of reputation. The same can be said for Virtue/Moir. This is not necessarily a bad thing since there are reasons for her having a higher reputation, which you obviously have listed in your argument.