WHAT IF...
This was more like a true sports competition system.
Early competitions in the season were all regionals with no bids given out so they are truly to get your skills in order and get competition experience.
There could be limits placed on how far teams could travel prior to January. Teams who wished to travel a greater distance could apply for a waiver showing that in order to compete it was "necessary." This should not be a formality, but rather a way to keep teams located in their own region. I would think a 200-mile radius would cover most situations, but I'm from KY where IN, St. Louis, Louisville, Nashville, Lexington, etc are all well within the limit and have multiple decent competitions a year. I am not sure how this would work in say Wyoming or Nebraska.
“Nationals” could only use that title if they had 10 teams per division or greater. Encourage competition in each division not just participation with multiple divisions with only 1 team.
Limit Nationals competitions to January/February/March, and in order to use the word "nationals" they must demonstrate that they had teams from x number of states the year before. Each competition company is limited to using this word for ONE event per year.
Worlds and Summit have a limit on the number of bids so that the nature of “elite” competition doesn’t get watered down.
Going back to my post which you shimmy'ed, here's a good place for my RPI format to come in. Regional competitions carry a certain amount of weight, and nationals carry twice that much. The incentives start to pile up for event promoters to offer a TRUE nationals experience, and teams to attend one of those competitions.
Proper, safe execution of skills is always priority so that any improper tumbling or building does not get credit, therefore would not put kids at risk. (think gymnastics level standards)
To a degree, this falls out of the scope of what I was discussing, but I understand where you're coming from, understand that you weren't directly referencing my idea, and understand/believe in this whole-heartedly. The All-Star industry does not penalize poorly executed skills enough in their execution scores. Then they double-fail when the deductions for falls/touches/etc are not big enough to truly defer a coach from leaving bad skills in the routine. For example, a stunt fall should be penalized to the degree mathematically it makes more sense for a team to compete level 4 skills in a level 5 routine than risk falling on a level 5 skill.
WHAT IF...
Well, crap, I answered in my quote of your post without thinking about it.