You have some serious flaws in your reasoning. First, the WCC is not, "unquestionably worse off in every other sport." Basketball is actually pretty debatable. Yes, the MWC is better most years but not greatly and, there are years like this last one, when the WCC was the higher rated conference. As for the rest of the sports, almost every single one is better in the WCC than in the MWC -- the MWC has largely bad Oly sports teams. There is a reason BYU won so many conference championships in so many different sports while in the MWC -- well over half. We are not having that same type of domination in the WCC because there is better competition.

As for football, the schedules are better. If you don't remember, we've argued about if two different seasons during Independence were BYU's toughest ever -- and we aren't even to the tough schedules yet (as you point out). The difference is that we don't play as many weak games in any given year -- typically, other than our FCS opponent, we've had one about one additional easy win on the schedule. While we still play several G5 teams per year, they typically are the tougher G5 teams.

As for one loss and the season is over, that isn't that much different than the MWC. What typically excited us in MWC years was how high we could go in the polls, even above winning the conference championship. Last year there was plenty of excitement while we were ranked, and one loss would not have killed that; last year it was losing Taysom that killed the excitement. If we have a year, even with losses, that we stay ranked during the year, we will be excited.

As for bowls, our bowls would not be better in the MWC (other than we could get in the New Year's pity G5 game). In fact, most years we've played in the same bowl games we could have been in if we were in the MWC. Last year's was arguably better than all of them, particularly as we were playing the champion of the AAC.

And I have to disagree about Independence and exposure. I'm guessing you live in Utah and are out of touch with what people in other areas think of BYU. While there is truth in most people not looking for a BYU game, the fact is that people will tune in if they see BYU playing. Add to the fact we are playing better competition, CFB fans will tune in to see the matchup. The problem, again as with rankings, is that BYU is not winning.

As for joining a P5 conference, being in the MWC would not help at all. Granted, it may not be worse than Independence but it wouldn't help. The issue is that none of the P5 conferences are currently expanding, and those that do have wanted teams on the East Coast. The Big 12 was never going to expand this year -- they had publicly stated it on many occasions. It will take, at a minimum, two or three years of the Big 12 being left out of the CFP games before they even start to look at expanding; they are far too happy with where they are and the money they are getting per school.