Very few gyms contend for top spots in Levels 1-4 while also being top contenders at Worlds. Hats off to the few gyms who are true contenders in both and very well-rounded, including gigantic gyms like Stingrays Marietta, Cheer Athletics Plano, some of the California All Stars locations--- and then medium size gyms like Spirit of Texas, Central Jersey All Stars, and Cheer Express who got just about all their teams into Finals and contended for top spots. (California All Stars might have had an even bigger presence at Summit in a non-Covid year; some of their teams didn't attend, including some strong Level 2/3 teams. A few other gyms were absent as well.)
The two main Cheer Extreme locations also did great, but some of their Summit divisions have very few teams in them (in one division, they were the only team), and there's always talk from the peanut gallery about them crossing down their best Level 6 kids--- which kind of reiterates my initial statement that it's truly difficult to be a top contender in both the upper and lower levels. I don't want to single out CEA, they're probably not the only one utilizing what people perceive as overboard crossovers. But my main point is, the above mentioned gyms will be a focus at Worlds and most of them have multiple Worlds teams.
Gyms like Diamonds, CheerVille, South Bay Divas, All Star Revolution, SCV (not so much this year) tend to contend for the top in several divisions at Summit but have less of a presence at Worlds. Iowa Elite Cheer, Raglan Coast, Wolfpack, Power House All Stars were great at Summit, but they don't have Worlds teams you hear about.
You could compare this a little bit to Simone Biles, who had poor results in the lower levels of gymnastics. She went on to become the greatest gymnast of all time, and those dozens of kids who beat her in Levels 8-Jr Elite--- we don't know them.
One of the concerns when they created the Summit is that it would cause kids to repeat levels for more years than they might normally would have if there was no Summit. Yes, you can stay in Level 3 longer to perfect and gain more Level 3 skills that might help you at Summit, but the tradeoff is that you might be losing out on an opportunity to breeze past Level 3 into a higher level. The track to be at the top of Summit vs the track to be at the top of Worlds isn't totally the same, so again, I'm very impressed by the small number of gyms who are strong contenders in both lower and Worlds levels.
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On another note, I would love a judge's take on this scoring system. There's no perfect system, but when there are 3-way ties and tons of teams separated by 0.1 or 0.2, you wonder how easy it is for judges to even use this scoring system. If you give one team 98.8 and another team 98.6, and then a third team comes along and should be ranked in the middle of those two, does the system easily enable you to give them a 98.7, or is it more like throwing darts when you score them and they might end up with a 98.9? I have seen literal carbon copies of routines this season score 97.5 at one event and 99 at another. In some divisions 98 is an amazing score that will contend for the win, and in another division 98 gets you 15th place. I get the reasons for this scoring system, I just don't fully trust these crazy tiny margins in a competition with a lot of teams.
