Very nice description of your system, curl. I've been out of competitions for a while now, but I'll attempt to give a basic description of the system here in the US according to the USABDA rules (United States Amateur Ballroon Dancers Association). Should you care, you can find their rule book on the web, look through usabda.org, but I'll break it down by memory, which may be somewhat out of date.
USABDA does have both age and level separations. I don't remember them exactly, but under 18 has a couple of divisions, I think these are all considered Youth groups, and from 18 up there are only a few divisions. I believe they're known as Adult A for 18+, Adult B for 35+, and Adult C for, hmm, maybe 55+? I forget. Often they will have a separate category for students, people under 35 who are enrolled in some college or university and I think you have to be full time. So we do have some age category divisions, but I don't remember exactly what they are or whether it's one partner or both partners that determine it. It may be that if one partner is in a higher age group and the other is in a lower age group, the couple has to compete at the higher group, but I really don't know. I always did college or Adult A events.
As for levels, we use syllabus levels. I don't know what they use for American style rhythm and smooth, but for international standard and latin the ISTD syllabus is the generally accepted one. I think they made some smaller changes to the levels, but the basic divisions have three syllabus levels and three open levels. If you run them together, you'd go Bronze, Silver, Gold, Novice, Pre-Championship, Championship. Typically the syllabus levels feature either one or two dance events, maybe three if you get to gold, I don't remember. Novice is a three dance event, Pre-Champ is a four dance event, and Champ is a five dance event. I think they're the same as in your system, curl, but I'm not certain. I think they added in a Master of Syllabus level which is kind of like an open level, but not exactly, it's a separate branch: you go bronze, silver, gold, then split off the Master of Syllabus on one side by itself and Novice, Pre-Champ, and Champ on the other side as another sequence. The Masters of Syllabus thing is new and I never did it, so I don't know the details.
Now, for moving between levels. Well, age ones are pretty obvious, when you get old enough, you change categories. They're there basically to keep kids from competing against adults and stuff like that. As far as the abililty levels go, there's a point system and I'll probably forget exactly how this works, too. The point system is used to determine when you "place out" of events; that is, when you're so good at one level that you have to move up in order to let everyone have a fair chance at winning. The lowest level you can compete at is the one that you have not placed out of yet. If you have zero points, like a new competitor would, you can start anywhere you want. As I understand it, there are provisions for points trickling down to lower levels so if you decided to start at gold and did well enough, the points you earned would apply in some form to silver and bronze syllabus, too. It's a little complex and I think things have changed since I remember it, so maybe I should just skip it. The basic concept though is that the better you do the more points you get and the more points trickle down if you're at a higher than minimum level. The full name of these are "proficiency points", BTW. Once you've gained X number of points for a given dance, style, level, (and age category), you have to move up to the next level for that dance and style. This allows you to be mixed all over the place, say silver rumba, bronze samba, novice waltz, gold tango, champ American tango, pre-champ American swing, etc. The only level you can't place out of is Championship because that's the highest level and there's no where to go after that.
So, if that wasn't too vague or outdated, that's basically how the USABDA system works. There are age and level divisions and a proficiency points system determines when you're good enough at one level that you have to move up. But it is very separated so that you can be at a different level for every dance in every style. So to the original question, I think it is appropriate to break down events by both age and level in order to give everyone dancing a fair chance at winning their chosen events.
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James Marshall
marshall@astro.umd.edu
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall
