The point difference between Dortmund who are in 6th position and the 3rd position is just 2 points so I believe if they sit up they can go higher up the table, but I agree with what you said that they can't compete for the title. Dortmund is too inconsistent to be a title contender. Even if they were just 2 points behind the league leaders I won't trust them to win the league. As an institution, Dortmund is not ready to win the league.
That's the reality. We can see the Bundesliga results in the previous few seasons and we will see Dortmund who are almost always in 2nd place in the standings. And the closest is the 2022-2023 season, Dortmund and Munich have the same number of points in the standings, but only Munich wins in the difference in the number of goals scored. In terms of performance, they have decreased I think. They have to fix everything if they want to compete for the title, at least for the coming season.
What I never truly understood about Dortmund is that they made some insane sales, between Sancho to United, Haaland to City and Jude to Real, they made some insane money, and first of all they did not used all of that money, which I never understood, most teams in the world spend more than what they earn, only a few spend less than what they earn, and Dortmund is one of them, if you make 100 million from player sale, you spend 120 million to get players, that's how usually it works because you also make money from the league, the UCL, the jersey sales, the ticket sales and many other things including sponsorship, so if you sell for 100, you have money from other things as well so you can do that and would make you a profit as well.
Secondly, whenever they buy players, they give up their wrong moves and they end up with getting older players at times, like their striker this season, sure he is good, but he is old, that is not what gave them success, younger and potentially great players made them great.