Responding to gkelly.
Is the following a fair way to look at it? The Skating Skills component measures the level of mastery of a competitor's fundamental blade-to-ice skills. This is clearly the most important thing in a skating contest -- who can skate the best? Then the artistic components like Interpretation measure how well the skater put those skills to the service of the music.
The problem is, I do not see that the judges are doing anything more than copying the SS mark over into the INT column, regardless of skill level or evidence of musicality. I just looked at the men's SS scores at Worlds versus their INT scores. The biggest difference was 0.36 points, and except for two exceptions no one had a difference of more that .25 -- the smallest possible individual increment.
A few points of response:
The averages of the whole panel are going to flatten out the differences between highest and lowest components -- some judges will give wider ranges. In this event, as unfortunately in many events, the widest range is rarely over 0.75 for a given skater. I would expect something like 0.75 or 1.0 to be the average difference (i.e., larger than 0.36). But I would expect differences on the order of 1.5 or 2.0 or more to be exceptions, because of the correlations between the skater's skills and the way the programs are designed to showcase skills, as SkateFiguring discusses.
One would think that once in a while a skater would exhibit strong skating skills but deliver a performance that was not exceptional in terms of musicality.
I think that actually happens pretty often.
Conversely, it seems like it is possible for a skater to have less secure mastery of complex technique but still to give a performance of relatively high musical merit.
This is less likely because 1) skaters (especially those who make it to the top levels) have spent a heck of a lot more time studying and training skating skills than they have spent on music education, and 2) skaters who are especially talented or well trained in music but who struggle with their technique will not be able to perform up to the level of their musical ability . . . unless they keep the skating content undemanding so they can focus on expressing the music.
(The latter -- for top skaters as well -- is why exhibitions are often so much more satisfying musically than competition programs. There's less mental energy devoted to concentrating on challenging technique and so more available to focus on the music.)
But this never happens. For the PCS we might just as well take the SS score and multiply it by 5. Why pretend?
The program components are factored so that, in theory, on average across a field of skaters some of whom are stronger in technique and some in performance, the TES and PCS will be approximately equal.
For senior men, the factors are nice round 1.0 for short programs and 2.0 for long.
If the number of components were broken down differently, the factors would have to change.
E.g., suppose it were decided that you're right, everyone is just pretending, there is never any meaningful difference between the way the judges award scores for any of the five components and there's no hope of training them better or dividing the officials' responsibilities differently to make the differences meaningful, so let's just combine all five components into one score similar to the second mark under the 6.0 system. In that case, to keep the TES/PCS balance the same as it is now, the factor for the combined single second mark would need to be 5.0 in men's short programs and 10.0 for long . . . assuming that the maximum value for this score remains 10.0. (If it were reverted to a 6.0 standard, then the factor would need to be significantly larger than 10.0.)
So let's say a judge wants to distinguish among three skaters who are approximately the same level, but within that level the judge sees a clear overall hierarchy in presentation ability that day. She decides to give one skater a score of 5.0 for this combined second mark and another skater a score of 5.5, and slips a third in between at 5.25. As close as they can get? Not really, when you multiply the differences by 10. The difference between the first two skaters ends up as 5.0, a gap wide enough to drive an average triple jump through. Yet there's only room for one skater between them and no means to differentiate on a finer level than those three.
Well, that's easy to solve. Let the judges use increments of 0.1 again instead of 0.25.
A compromise approach would be to have a Skating Skills/Transitions component with a factor of 2.0 SP/4.0 LP, and a Performance/Execution/Choreography/Interpretation (i.e., Presentation) component with a factor of 3.0 and 6.0 respectively. Or, if it's felt that skating skills should carry more weight (by the ISU; I know the music fans won't feel that way), then factor each of those two scores at 2.5 and 5.0.
I could live with the two scores factored to add up to 5.0 and 10.0 (it gets tricker in other disciplines and at lower levels) if the judges get the finer 0.1 scoring increments to work with.
On the other hand, I think that dividing the scores into five areas gives the judges not only a way to make fine distinctions among skaters who are more or less at the same basic skill level (a purpose that tiebreakers also served under 6.0), but also it's a way to communicate to skaters: This is your general skill level (e.g., low 5s). Within that general level, I thought you were strongest on Performance/Execution (nice posture, beautiful extension, good connection with the audience, totally committed to the movement) and weakest on Skating Skills (your edges weren't very deep or steady, and you were pretty slow out there).
Even within the three final "performance" components, I think it's useful to be able to say within your general level I think you were strongest on Interpretation (great connection to the music, lots of little nuances with your arms, facial expression, even the rhythm of your stroking) but actually weakest on Choreography (whose dumb idea was it to have the new section of music start in the middle of a spin? Why are all the elements placed between the blue lines except for the toe jumps, with all three spins in the same part of the ice? Could those arm movements be any more cliche?)
For the latter purpose, I agree, the judges would need to make more of an effort to separate the five components.
) gives seminars to ISU judges about how to score Choreography. In this instruction she uses tapes and examples of her students, who are still in competition, doing exemplary choreography. "See, that's what good choreography is!"
I saw my old friend coming. 
