I used to agree with you and everything you mentioned regarding baseline prestige. But the more I thought about it, the big schools like Duke and North Carolina are always popular and will always be the top dogs so to speak. I do think they need to reevaluate who should be the high baseline schools, but I do think it should exist.
I mean in real life, even though VCU was doing so well in the tournament they were never going to be as popular as a Duke, Kansas, UCLA, etc.