The petals sort of became obsolete practically before we moved to chapter 2.
Originally we see the Father wanting to "teach" his daughter about being a good girlfriend because he is sexually attracted to her and wants to get naughty with her but she is young and his daughter so he can't just casually date her. During that time the petals meant corruption. How far he could push the lewd action while "teaching" her.
But even by the end of Chapter 1 they had a whole discussion about her "massaging" his penis and how she was actually masturbating him. And how they had feelings of love for each and wanted the relationship to be real and not just "teaching" her for her future "real" boyfriend. So she was ok with masturbating her lover and thinking about how far that might progress like a real boyfriend/lover. And once he gave her the big O and kissed her during it they were now truly in love. They only wanted to make the other person as happy as they could and be with them forever.
That happens no matter what side routes you got going.
That changes the entire concept of corrupting an innocent to give you sexual gratification into loving your girlfriend and doing everything to protect her and make her happy and successful in life.
That also makes the petals mostly useless at that point, at least as far as the initial get my kinks off this naïve girl through manipulation and deception.
Chapter 2 starts with us consumed by the NEED to go see our love who was stolen away. The thoughts and the feelings we see as we are in the head of the Father make it clear how this is no longer that original corruption path. To his credit MrDots worked to put in a lot of the early promises of sharing and couples swinging (to a degree). But it really is clear that those who skim or do not read the dialogue at all were very much missing the change in tone. Some who do read it, didn't care because they wanted certain things SO HARD that they didn't want to acknowledge the way the tone and approach to the story had evolved. But the very dirty and more extreme possibilities absolutely went out the window all the way back then. That's why so many people feel like it was done at the end of Chapter 2 because they loved each other so much they had sex and no longer cared about holding back. Love forever, intimacy maximum, they were basically complete. So Chapter 3 really was like check off list of promises. Ryan check. Martin check. 3some with Elena check. 3some with Georgina check. Lewdness while in the room with Olivia and Graham check(bonus for F of Olivia helping out with him). Lewdness in room with Ryan and Margo check. 3some of F+E+J check (though it god damn took forever for that one because of work done on all the male paths). Also model competition so all those actions went somewhere check (but you lose anyway unavoidable). Again all the promises fulfilled in Chp 3 being filled by MrDots was him doing his best to keep his word from way back. He should get credit for that when it is off the path the story was taking him as he created it. (My Opinion)
So now in Chp 4 he wants to finish off the story as it is now. The soulmate love connection of F and Dee and that is the driving story no matter what side action you set up. Elena may love both of them and they may love her but it is not equal to their love for each other. Same with whomever else's name you have on the side. So there should be more love scenes with major side pieces but I do not think anything is going to get "raunchier" than right now because it does not fit the love story.
So yeah, petals are not marking the same thing anymore. The last 4 are hard to guess. But could probably be scrapped in my opinion.
