On the 1st sentence:
Either a 16 team alignment or 18 team alignment would be used, in 16, 60% of current XII remains/ in 18, 80% of current XII remains...
Add to this, an old XII in league rival would be reunited with the expanding XII (Colorado), so either 7 or 9 current & former rivals stay...
Iowa State/ Kansas/ Kansas State*/ Oklahoma/ Oklahoma State/ Texas/ Texas Tech/ TCU*/ Colorado/ Utah/ Arizona/ Arizona State/
UCLA/ USC/ California/ Stanford/ Oregon/ Washington all remain within the same league, coverig 106 million residents (* not in 16 team model)...
But I agree, realignment sucks & I would hate to see the day Oklahoma & Texas are in seperate mega conferences, that strains ability of annual game in Dallas...
On the 2nd paragraph:
I agree, if I myself had a choice, things would not be much different, than a few changes from when XII formed...
If XII had used a model to drop a few duplicate markets, maybe things would have been different from the stert...
As some may not know, Oklahoma was in talks to join SWC before talk of forming XII began (after Arkansas exit)...
What XII (maybe) should have done is "keep" old Big8 brands & added prime SWC institutions, just before Arkansas exit:
Iowa State/ AAU brand, loyal fan following
Nebraska/ AAU brand, historic football & biggest foe of Oklahoma
Missouri/ AAU brand, brings markets Kansas City & St. Louis
Kansas/ AAU brand, solid basketball tradition
Colorado/ AAU brand, brings the market of Denver
Oklahoma/ well known historic football brand
Oklahoma State/ umm, well the in-state rival of OU
Arkansas/ a regional power & biggest in conference rival of Texas
Texas/ AAU brand, historic football & flagship brand in the entire state
Texas A&M/ AAU brand, umm, well the in-state rival of UT
Texas Tech/ largest in state school in western half of state, in-state foe of UT
A few teams that could have been added (for #12), in an era lacking outragious media revenues that constrict what teams can be added:
BYU/ ironically, XII was in talks to join XII before Baylor was somehow strong armed into league
Utah/ flagship of the state, (has now become an AAU brand since joining PAC) could be taken with or w/o BYU
New Mexico/ some may not be aware, XII had looked to add the Lobos, originally copyrighted the names #Big12/ #Big14 & #Big16
TCU or Houston, Rice/ left out of the merger, Horned Frogs decent in state brand-Cougars can be valuable in nation's 4th largest city-Owls AAU brand in Houston