As a Gold Singles/Pairs and Dance Test Judge my first thought is that it looks like it is much easier to become a coach than a judge - I see a lot of our skaters make that transition and start out as Jr Coaches teaching LTS. Their achievement levels in skating have been varied as well.
So it probably is different in various areas depending on competition for coaching jobs but it sounds like in some areas you have to have achieved quite a high skating level yourself if you ever expect to coach - that is many years - maybe it just seems longer to get a judging appointment because by the time you decide you want to become a judge you don't have that many years of life left and so every year that you don't get your next appointment seems like a lifetime!!
That being said I wish there was a easy way to get young people more involved in judging!
Theoretically, judging is easier. In practice, it isn't. The guidance for becoming a coach and working up through the system is a lot simpler to follow, and doesn't rely as much on the types of things Trial Judging requires you to do.
From what my Monitor explained to me, Trial Judging requires you to judge <x> amount of tests are all levels for the concentration you're going for (Singles & Pairs, Ice Dance, etc.). It also involves progression throttling because they won't allow you to progress faster than they think you should be. This means if you have the time, means, and expenses to travel around your area and get all the tests done in 6 months, by Trial Judging at every test session that comes up... They likely still won't let you finish that fast. ~2 years seems to be an acceptable number.
Additionally, they made it sound way too political for me, and too much of your progress hinges on you being in line with subjective judges at test sessions.
If someone does a Novice Moves test and you fail them, but the judges were lenient and 2/3rds passed the skater, you get a fail for that test. And you pretty much have to do more test to make up for that failure.
In the end, it wasn't worth the effort just to [eventually] help the club have a more accessible judge for test sessions.
Lots of paperwork, too... along with some really poor guidance (IMO) on USFS' website.
I can see why other young people would avoid it.