Very nice explanation of situation, but I think we could go even further.
You agree that "Skater's greatness – whatever that means – is hard to define", but I would say that the problem is then the idea of competition for this sport and not "how you judge" / "how you measure".
There is no inherent need of competition for every sport in my opinion. There can be prizes, juries, etc, but if people would accept that in the end it is subjective might make it easier than overly complex system to rate "fairly" something unclear (doubt anybody would want to put rules on how you rate a film for an Oscar - they just know it is "fuzzy").
You agree that "Skater's greatness – whatever that means – is hard to define", but I would say that the problem is then the idea of competition for this sport and not "how you judge" / "how you measure".
There is no inherent need of competition for every sport in my opinion. There can be prizes, juries, etc, but if people would accept that in the end it is subjective might make it easier than overly complex system to rate "fairly" something unclear (doubt anybody would want to put rules on how you rate a film for an Oscar - they just know it is "fuzzy").