Some of which are powerhouse programs (particularly out east). https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/conferences/independent/1983.html

The reason many of them went to conferences was because of the developing BCS conference champ requirements and I believe it was around the time of change in the broadcasting rights for CFB where individual teams or conferences could negotiate their rights vs the NCAA as a whole. Broadcasters were not as ready to commit to individual teams at the time so to be able to be a part of that new revenue stream they needed to join a conference.

If another big shift in the broadcast revenue stream was available and since top 4 are (supposed to be) in the playoff no matter what conference (or not) they are in then why wouldn't some of those powers possibly consider it?

I'm not saying they will...just that they have in the past...and possibly could again in the future.

You can't tell me that some are not thinking about their individual worth when they see LHN (while not all that successful is still profitable to Texas), Notre Dame with NBC, BYU with ESPN and even the special considerations for BSU in the MWC that then morphed into special considerations within the conference for any team based on appearances.

If teams like Oregon St, Indiana, Minnesota, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, etc want to hold dearly to equal distribution I could see some cracks forming with some of their conference power teams.

I don't claim to know what that would be but certainly one of the many possibilities would be individual team contracts for the big dogs which unless the conference members allowed while remaining in the conference (uneven distribution could be another way) would possibly mean a move to independence to get those contracts.