There are some tricks that do make you jump farther. For instance there's one where if you are doing say a frontflip, the rider lets his feet off the bike while still holding both handlebars and sort of flings the bike around faster. When he comes back upright the weight of the bike has actually thrown both rider and bike farther than if it was just a regular frontflip.
Skill games (and FMX trick tracks) are now part of the regular progression of Trials. Instead of an entirely separate mode, there are skill games planted right into the middle of say a medium difficulty track pack. The medals you get there contribute towards unlocking the next pack of tracks. So in essence, skill games and FMX are required to keep advancing.
I wish I could actually get into the game to show you the perfect example of how the tricks are impacting regular trials runs but the latest beta update broke the game for Windows 8.1 users. For those that can get in, there's a track that's at nighttime where you start off on kind of a high hill that looks more like the Trials Evo aesthetic and then it blends into the Fusion high tech look. There's a jump right at the beginning that people are using the FMX system to boost past a checkpoint that sits on a large rock for better times. Just watch the top replays.
