I agree that it's super frustrating in that it mostly seems to be dictated by internal ice dance politics. Like the judging was very clearly along block lines in the free dance. US, Can, and Monaco (the rogue haha) had them 2nd or 3rd, the other judges with teams in the comp put them like 7th which is just kind of absurd.
Good takeaways though: they are clearly putting in the work. Personally I think they have the strongest set of programs of every one I've seen so far this season. They are taking care of everything that they can control. And they basically had skating twitter united in saying they were underscored this weekend which is quite an accomplishment hahaha.