Maybe I am not conveying my point clearly. Under the old prestige based system in D1, it was nearly impossible to beat the people entrenched at the top. The only way to win was do your time, climb the ladder of programs, hope a high baseline team opened and then become an elite.
Many (a majority?) of owners preferred D2 and D3 because you had a chance. I am a pretty good owner, I know what I am doing, I am a "regular, run of the mill" good owner. I was systematically destroyed in D1, not because the other owners were that much better than me, but because they were a little better and had a tremendous advantage.
Think back to the dominant non D1 coaches, jdno, aejones, emy, maybe I am forgetting a few but I could beat those guys. If I had to guess, my record vs those guys was probably something like 20-50. But I could win. I even beat billy, once. Once. I think, maybe I am making that up.
At D1, I got destroyed. I literally NEVER beat an A+ prestige team. Never. I had solid teams , the best team I built would lose by 15 regularly to the top teams. I had no chance. I had a Rutgers team make it to the S16, two guys were drafted, 90's every where. I lost by 20 to Illinois. I lost by 30 to St. Johns.
I play a lot of games, I am a huge dork that way, and in my opinion all (and that isn't hyperbole) good games have two things in common:
1. There needs to be multiple ways to win, any game where there is only one optimal strategy isn't interesting long
2. You need to have the chance to win, any game where it's impossible (or nearly impossible) to knock off the people who are winning is poor design
D1 under the old system violated both those tenants in my opinion.