BYU, it doesn't seem like conferences give much credit for accomplishments 20-40 years ago for invites today. By most accounts, it looks like BYU actually did get an invite in the 90s based on those successes you mention and it fell apart due to some bad luck (particularly Colorado bailing on BYU).
And yes, I agree there were also other factors that likely caused BYU to miss out on a PAC invite in the late 2000s (e.g. some PAC schools likely not being too excited about a very conservative and religious school in their conference, and also the Sunday issue for most other sports). It was certainly a perfect storm of events that got Utah invited instead of BYU or in addition to BYU.
And like I said farther up, I apologize for my original post you were responding too - it was inflammatory and not fair.