To me, that is the crux of the whole thing.
What is more important, getting the maximum number of medals and spots at Worlds/Olympics, or running a competition in which every athlete is treated fairly and equally.
tl;dr: Nationals as a competition on its own merits probably treats the participants more fairly in terms of competition judging if the world team selection is NOT determined strictly by Nationals results.
There are two different "competitions" that happen during the national championships.
One is the actual national championships, which determines the national champion in each discipline, and also silver, bronze, pewter medalists and all the other places below that.
The other is selection for international assignments.
There is nothing inherent in the process of holding a national competition called "championships" that requires assignments to Worlds or other events to strictly follow the order of finish at that event. Historically the US had typically done so, with occasional exceptions for injured world medalists.
At a certain point they wrote it into their rules that the national champion would always be assigned to Worlds if eligible. They specifically did not write that in for Olympic selections for legal reasons having to do with rights to the championships, and they also did not write in that subsequent places on the world team would automatically be assigned according to order of finish at Nationals, although at first they did continue to usually follow those results.
Then they decided to write new rules that allowed for more strategic team selection. The new rules specified several tiers of past results to be considered, with Nationals results being the last and most important but not sole deciding factors.
Some other countries have always used a process more like the current US procedure; others have tended to follow national results more closely; others have at least sometimes used the results of Europeans/Four Continents or domestic post-Nationals skateoffs to determine world teams, which the US has never done but theoretically could.
Although it might be considered more "fair" to publish in advance strict weightings for each of these results to be considered, so that skaters would know going into Nationals exactly where they needed to place, whom they needed to place ahead of, or what scores they needed to earn to be selected for the world team, a strictly numerical formula will often miss subtleties such as extenuating circumstances (injuries, etc.) and the strength of the field in which each considered result was earned, etc., so there's no guarantee that such a formula would do a better job of fielding a process that also includes human discretion.
However, if a numerical formula is as simple as "The top placing skaters at Nationals will go to Worlds, assuming they are eligible to compete there, in order of finish, with no other considerations" puts the decisions about world team selection solely in the hands of the judges and tech panels at Nationals. That means they would have on their minds not only how the skaters are actually skating on that day, but also which skaters they "want" to send on to Worlds. Which would tempt judges to try to fudge the Nationals results in order to get the skaters considered the best bet for Worlds into the top slots, thus making Nationals itself less of a fair competition.
Suppose you're a less decorated skater who may not be old enough for Worlds, by nationality are not eligible to represent the US this year or if not a citizen not eligible to represent the US now or for years to come, or have not earned necessary minimum tech scores perhaps because you had never yet earned or been able to take advantage of international assignments or never managed to skate well enough when you were sent out. Or maybe you do have the minimum scores but just barely and there are three or more other skaters who have much stronger resumes than you do.
If you have a breakout performance at Nationals, would you prefer/consider it more fair to be scored accurately on what you do and earn a national title or silver or bronze medal and then get passed over for Worlds, or to be intentionally held down in the scoring so that a more favored skater (including one who
can go to Worlds if you're not eligible) can take the title/other medal along with a world team spot that automatically goes with it?
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