I think that 5 conferences playing for 4 spots with no guaranteed births is actually how a reality show exec would design it to maximize interest. Every week becomes a potential elimination round or a chance for redemption (as we saw in the B1G's near demise at the beginning of the season, and subsequent rise at the end).

Four 16 team conferences divided into divisions of 8 or pods of 4, with each playing the same conference schedule and number of OOC games is the way it would be if the overall governing structure (NCAA) were calling the shots, but the NCAA isn't driving the bus, and the current P3 conferences (SEC, B1G, PAC) and their media partners (ESPN, FOX) are too busy trying to climb over one another to come up with some sort of equitable solution. It's still every conference for himself, and that means that expansion is likely to continue to be messy. I think the 4x16 concept basically died in the last round when the PAC failed to secure the Texahoma 4 and the B1G passed on Missouri and Kansas.

The only real way for the conferences to get substantially more money is to cut out the middlemen (ESPN/FOX) and keep more for themselves, but the PAC network's limited distribution is showing that model to be problematic. I think it's going to be status quo for quite a while, because the machinery of realignment pretty much seized up with the ACC and BigXII GoRs. It would take some big changes to break the stasis- things like megaconference mergers or cooperative conference dissolution, and there's no indication that any of those things are happening.