The four year pathway: Doomed?

So my recent string of waitlists has gotten me to think about something that had popped into my mind during medical school interview season. It seemed to me that the really top schools that I interviewed at were predominantly filled with older interviewers. I know that at a few interviews that I was the youngest person there, and I'm 22. I checked up on this, and it turns out that almost half of all students accepted to the Top 10 medical schools were non-traditional, meaning that they took some significant time off. Whether this includes people who took a year off, I'm not entirely sure, but either way this is a very significant number. It basically says that in order to be truly competitive at the very best schools you have to have MORE than an undergraduate experience. This makes a great deal of sense to me. As much as we pre-meds like to think that we are all the best, most unique candidate, I acknowledge that I simply can't compete with some of these applicants at this time. I've got the grades and the scores, and I've managed to smash more interesting EC's into my four years than I thought possible, but ultimately my two years of part time work in research is no match for someone with a two year full-time fellowship at the NIH, and my teaching and tutoring experiences simply don't match up with someone who did a stint with Teach for America. There just isn't enough time in four years to fit things of that magnitude, though some people may come close. 

So the question that I ask and have asked is if this is a trend? Will this slowly trickle down to all schools until basically every applicant applies after a year of post-graduate work. Not likely, in my opinion, but it is clear to me by looking up the data that the barriers to the very top schools are growing higher for those who wish to make it there in four years. Everyone will tell you that medical school admissions is growing in competition, and the very top is definitely keeping ahead of pace. So, should I have considered waiting and done Teach for America like I wanted? Maybe knowing what I do now I would have, because I honestly didn't even think that I would be competitive at this level until the interviews starting coming in. At this point though, I wouldn't give up what I have to try again. Who knows, maybe in the coming months it will turn out that I did manage to jump those towering walls.