Next season will be interesting indeed with the 3A moving up to seniors. But, I feel that we are moving into a quad/3Axel-land where it depends even more on if you land it or not. Rika was the proof here. Has she landed her 3 Axels then she would have won. Next season the results might be all over the place. And it might be someone without 3Axel/Quads that stands on top...hmm...Kostornaia??
The thing about Rika's 3Aa is that they replace 2As, not the most efficient in terms of points. A 4S from her would either replace her 3S, which would in turn replace a 2T-2Lo if she does 3Lz-Eu-3S, or replace her 3Lo, which in turn replaces her 2T in a 3Lz-3Lo. In essence, Rika's 4S replaces at most two double jumps, which is a base value increase of over 7. Even if she pops the 4S into a 2S, she loses nothing, and we've seen it takes a pop on a 3A and a fall on another 3A to be brought down to no quad/no 3A scoring territory. Next season, she would need two pops and a fall to be on similar scoring to Alyona, and I think we can agree that Alyona doesn't have a PCS edge over her. Rika is also currently not prone to meltdowns. Therefore, it is even more unlikely that Alyona will win against Rika without a 3A herself. The technical gap is too large. Most other skaters will be in the same boat. A 4S and 2x3A is 17.2 base value ahead of 2x2A, 2T+2Lo. Including the short, 4S + 3x3A is 21.9 base value ahead of 3x2A, 2T+2Lo. Only Trusova would have a technical edge over Rika, as it stands.