Sorry, I'm not the one you were responding too but I have some experience with this. The gym that we just left used Xcel to bypass compulsories with score out meets along the way. It's actually very common in our region. As a matter of fact while I'm not positive, it seems that in our state, you see more gyms doing this now than actually competing compulsories. This is the path my dd took. She did 2 years of bronze, one year of silver, and then did L6 (scoring out of 4 and 5 along the way.) I do feel that she was less prepared them a kid who had been through compulsories and she didn't get a 34 at either of her score out meets. However while L6 was a struggle at first (especially on bars) she ended the season in the 35's. We moved to a gym that has more optionals and she will compete L6 again with some upgrades. Xcel might not be the ideal path, but my dd is a kid who might have burned out into compulsories. The kip took a very, very long time to come for her. She could have potentially had to do 3 seasons of L3 if she had been in compulsories. Thank god once she got it, it was consistent and clean pretty fast!
It seems to me that this might be a way for them to crack down on that. They've already tried to crack down on compulsory kids trying to compete in Xcel lower levels after compulsory season with the new mobility chart, that requires L3's to compete gold instead of silver, etc (although exceptions can be made). But I think in order for them to really crack down on using Xcel to bypass compulsories, they will have to crack down on score out meets. When a gym brings a judge in to score out their team, they are usually extremely generous. I wouldn't be surprised if a whole team of kids just "happened" to still be able to get 34's at a score out meet even if they wouldn't have gotten that score anywhere else.