learn the more difficult elements the younger skaters are learning or improve what they can do so they are in a position to capitalize if others make mistakes. Although, that's not competition. That's exhibition skating.
How is that exhibition skating?
Figure skating has always had a balance between difficulty and technical quality. (Earlier in its history, quality was the bigger deciding factor, especially when the majority of the score was from compulsories where everyone was doing the exact same moves.)
If you've maxed out on the amount of technical difficulty you are able to include, you can still increase your competitiveness by improving the technical quality, as well as the less technical program components.
Maxing out is most obvious with jump content, but it could be seen in other areas as well. E.g., men who can keep up with the other top skaters on quads but who can't master all level 4 spins, perhaps because of lack of flexibility. Pairs who can maximize their side-by-side and throw jumps but can't get the highest levels on lifts and twists, perhaps because of small size difference and also maybe the female partner's lack of flexibility. Etc.
The ISU can decide how much they want difficulty in certain types of skills to drive the results. If they wanted, they could redesign the rules to give more opportunities for earning points in blade-to-ice skills and lower point values or fewer element slots for elements that earn points primarily on ability to achieve extreme body positions or to rotate more times in the air.
Within whatever the rules happen to be, skaters can only push their own limits, and if they hit a personally ceiling in certain types of skills because of body type for example, they can only do their best to push further in the other areas where they are not so limited. If the scoring is designed to favor the types of skills that they are more limited in and to give fewer scoring opportunities for the areas where they excel, then they're less likely to win. But they can still aim to score as high as they are able and to place as high as possible. If they're working hard to place 5th and not 10th, they are competing, not skating exhibitions.