Just one point: Under the current skating system, a clean program with well-executed jumps will always score more than a messy one because of the importance of the GOE. The PCS that Ashley so heavily depended upon might not make the difference any more. No doubt that figured in her decision not to return to competition just as much as the surge in multi-revolution jumps did.
"No doubt"? Well ... I don't know about that. It's just possible that your mind-reading of Ashley, and your assumptions, are wrong on all counts. I've been following her. From what I've read, her decision not to return to competition had everything to do with the fact that she'd always had it in her mind that after the Olympic year of 2017-18, she would take the opportunity to find out what else of life she could explore, after devoting 22 years to her figure skating career. (And, she added, that career had been "a dream.") She felt she owed it to herself.