Why do some skaters receive higher scores than others day in and day out? It's not about reputation, it's about certain qualities such as speed or flow or program composition.
Yes, those things are very important in skating scoring.
The USFS ignores all of these.
I disagree that is true. How else would skaters who exemplify these qualities receive higher scores day in and day out if the judges they compete in front of many of those days ignore those qualities?
As an example, if Starr Andrews skated cleanly and Bradie made a couple of mistakes (with an overall program that would still beat Starr internationally), Starr would win and be sent to worlds. The judges would ignore all of the qualities Bradie has been getting higher scores than Starr to begin with, and we would sending someone with much less scoring potential.
You're making up a scenario that hasn't actually happened and then damning your imaginary US judges for your imagined scenario. Why not wait and see what really happens first?
With IJS, it's important to keep in mind:
1) Judges don't necessarily know how their GOEs and PCS will interact with the base values to produce final results. They might think something like "Skater B had lower jump content than Skater A and will probably have significantly lower base value, but the quality on many of those elements was so much better than I've justifiably given higher GOEs, and I also believe that B deserves significantly higher scores on all the program components. If that puts B ahead of A despite the lower difficulty, that's fine with me -- I thought B skated better overall."
But if B lost technical points in more areas than just jump content, A might end up coming out ahead of B on the strength of the TES despite judges scoring B significantly higher in the areas they have control of.
2) The judges don't have enough information to keep track of all the math necessary to determine definitively how they're ranking the skaters. In addition to doing the actual jobs they're tasked with (scoring each element GOE and each component according to the guidelines), they would also need to memorize the Scale of Values including the values of underrotated jumps and each level of non-jump elements and the prorated GOE values for each, and they would need to call/guess the levels of the non-jump elements for themselves since they aren't shown what the tech panel calls nor do they see the TES tracker shown on TV, and they would also need to add in the PCS, factored by 0.8 or 1.6 for ladies and pairs but by 1.0 and 2.0 for men.
I'm sure experienced judges who mainly judge juniors and seniors can
estimate the elements and factors most used at those levels, but I'm also sure that they don't have time figure out exactly how many points Skater B would need to earn in GOEs and TES to outscore Skater A. So even if they were specifically trying to manipulate the scores to get a particular result rather than just scoring each element and component as they see it, sometimes they would miscalculate.
3) The simple number of mistakes is less relevant than the kind of mistakes. E.g., popping a jump to a single will usually lose more points than falling on a fully rotated triple. Doubling a jump that needs to be triple in a short program is more costly than falling on a triple. Stumbling on the change of foot in a combination spin is more costly than stumbling on the exit. Etc. But in some cases, a costly error or costly lowering of content in terms of base value may have little effect on the program components, whereas a more visibly disruptive error might lose more in PCS than it does in TES.
Also, more and more, the International Committee has the authority to choose a world or Olympic or other team that does not strictly match the order of finish at Nationals. Which gives judges more freedom to mark each performance as they perceive it on the day without trying to manipulate who should be sent to the big event.
