Competitor analysis is a high level tool.

As well as the Thematics. Those are tools you use when you are competing for titles and medals. The use of these tools helps bring us to another level. These tools take us away from the "hit and miss" level and "hope" we get a medal mentality.

We will discover more and more tools when we focus on the U14, U16, U18 and U20. When we do that we will be able to see our past mistakes as well as see what else we will need to move forward. But we wont find them if we continue to only look at the U12.

What is accomplished when we do a lot of competitor analysis is we will begin to build models. The type of player we are playing against, whether our current arsenal is sufficient or not etc.etc.etc. And these models can then be subsequently used even in Swiss tournaments as a test of our assumptions. We just need to factor in time and relook at how it impacts on the model.

This is a break from the hobbyists level. Nothing wrong about playing chess as a hobby. But for those that want to move ahead we will need more tools. Hit and miss are not for the professionals.