Is Dance Competition the worse of all the “Travel Leagues”?

I only have daughters (two, and no pics), so I missed out on the whole travel baseball thing.

My oldest played soccer up until a couple years ago. It wasn’t officially travel ball, but we did travel a few weekends a year because there are less teams to play as they get older.

My youngest has been dancing for 14 years now, and is on the competition team of her dance studio. These girls start on the comp team around 10-12 years old.

Now, I’m not saying dance competition is a waste of time. I can appreciate a great dancer. These girls work their asses off hours on end, perfecting their performances.
They go to 4-5 competitions a year. It’s an all weekend long thing. What I don’t get is why is dance competition nearly a “everyone gets a trophy” competition.
At my other daughter’s soccer tournaments, the winning team would get the cup, the winning players got medals, etc. You lost, you went home with nothing.

At dance competitions, they are judged and ranked Bronze to Platinum (or even Double Patinum). There is no point system.
The last comp I went to, not a single performance scored below a Gold (even though there were some really bad dances).

The studios have dance teams, everything from solos to entire team dances. I don’t understand why it can’t be a point system, and they have “Winners” in each category, plus an overall team winner.

My wife says “It’s little girls, it’s different.” I call BS. First, most of these girls are teenagers, and understand competition. Plus, even if they are only 10-12 years old, if they want to be on a comp team, they need to understand what competition means.

It’s the biggest money grab of any travel league.