Is it a matter of lacking "clout" or of lacking skill/quality (relatively speaking -- 5.7s were still elite scores). Of course, the quality is usually what led to the clout in the first case.
Of course there were and are exceptions where judges see what they expect or want to see. But I think we need to start from the premise that judges judge what they see, according to the rules and standards they have been trained in, and focusing not only on the number of obvious errors but also on subtler technical points that don't always come across on video and don't always come across to live viewers without the technical training.
And then they don't always live up to the ideal, because they're human.
But I'd rather understand the ideal and and understand that it is not always met, rather than assuming that judges failing to judge what they see is the default condition.
Right. Which means if a great skater on a bad day earns PCS in the 8s, those scores might be the highest in the event or they might be 10th highest, depending on how the other skaters do. If the judges aren't comparing the skaters to each other, they'll award each skater the scores they think that performance deserved on that day. Regardless of what they think the other skaters deserved that day.
And then higher PCS might not translate into first place overall if the skater on the bad day had enough serious errors, penalized in base value and GOEs, to end up with lower TES that the PCS can't compensate for.
Or they might still have the highest TES if they rotated more quads than the skaters who skated cleaner (or whose errors were things like underrotations/downgrades or edge calls or inadequate spin positions or step sequence turns that don't count, meaning the performances could look good to casual viewers but end up losing more points than stepping or falling out of rotated difficult jumps.
If the skaters are less skilled (let's say, rather than calling them inferior), then they won't win when everyone skates their best. But if they do skate their best and a more skilled skater makes multiple errors, then they can win. That sounds like the way it should be.
As for "popular" -- of course, skaters can be popular with fans for all sorts of reasons that are irrelevant to scoring/results, or not have much impact.
Being "popular" with judges is often rooted in fundamental technical expertise, which may still be present throughout a performance aside from a few moments of visible errors.
Or not, if the skater is injured etc. and not living up to their own ability that day.
Yes, falls will affect the PCS and if everybody falls at least twice then no one should get 9s let alone 10 under the current rules.
It's unlikely, but if you have a very top skater who typically earns scores like 9.5 for a clean performance and then subtract 0.25 from each component for each fall, 4 or 5 falls can still end up in the 8s. However, losing 1.0 or 1.25 across all components means losing 5 or more points overall in a men's free skate.
And then there are the fall deductions, which under today's rules would total 6 points for 4 falls and 9 points for 5 falls. That's a lot of points lost outside the PCS.
I'm more interested into what they want to say and what they want to be their legacy.
