I never asked for a direct confrontation, I just wanted them to SHOW Elle's skills to me so I could actually buy Elle being Kalos Queen. From what we were shown, Serena had a better performance than Elle, which means she deserved to win. But since she didn't win that begs the question - was the audience biased? If so, that opens yet another can of worms in regards to this competition.
Anyway, yeah, the focus was on Serena's growth and I think that is why most of the other aspects suffered. The writers were so focused on making Serena come out of it as a better person that they pretty much neglected the rivals and the actual structure of the competition.
They practically skipped Jessie getting her keys to participate in the finals. No cheating implying, no off-screen, no dialogue hints, nothing. Just SKIP. Pathetic.