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this simply encourages a conference to protect their best team.  That one or two conference teams that have a better chance of making the 4-team playoff.

giving Ohio St. and Oklahoma and Clemson and USC/Oregon the most advantages year after year to ensure your conference gets a seat at the money table is ugly

When has this happened?  
When have the other 11-13 teams stood by as a conference catered to their best team?

I think you're better off playing two pastries to start the year, then your conference slate, then another pastry before a Big Game, and then some sole P5 team like Georgia Tech that isn't very good.  

Then you can finish 11-1 and likely make a 12 game playoff.  Play OSU and Clemson early and get beat twice, perhaps, and players injured, and a new QB scared of the rush, and bad things ensue.

I think you're better off playing two pastries to start the year, then your conference slate, then another pastry before a Big Game, and then some sole P5 team like Georgia Tech that isn't very good. 

The SEC is allowed to do this.  Nobody else is.

ask the Big 12

remember that little 3-way tie breaker that just happened to go to the Sooners?

Poor planning = funnelling support behind the best team?  

If they are the best team, does it matter?  
I'm confused.  What year is this?  Wasn't it just the hgihest-ranked in the BCS in 2008?

Pro and Cons of an 8 team playoff (same as for 12 mostly).

Pros

1.  More high level games in January
2.  Just making the playoff gets your team some credit
3.  More money, esp. if first round games are played at host stadia
4.  Probably some more

Cons

1.  The bowl games will become even less important outside the ones included.
2.  That 8-9-10 pick will be controversial nearly every year, as will seeding.
3.  On occasion, that 8 seed will upset a 1 seed (and 7-2 etc.).
4.  School Presidents will jaw about student athlete stuff.
5.  Some players may sit it all out and prepare for the Draft (esp. for bowl teams only).
6.  The final rounds would need to be indoors or far south making many teams travel.
7.  A fan would have to buy three tickets in effect if he thinks his team will make it through.  $$$
8.  Probably some more.

They'll never win.  And it creates a ton more interesting games.  Allowing 3 loss P5 schools makes the regular season completely meaningless

It strikes me that we just have to accept that if meaning is derived from the pursuit of a playoff, in any system, more than 8 in 10 (maybe 9 in 10) regular season games are completely meaningless. 

Which I suppose is fine in its own way. It's fair to say we prefer the weight of meaning to be in a particular set of games vs. a particular other set of games. 

as Saban eluded.........

it's fine for the top 15 teams, but the other 100 programs then have no reason to care.  their bowl games and regular season are meaningless

But if there were two teams, or no title game at all, wouldn’t most of those games be about as meaningless?

if the answer is, having a good season by whatever standards you have, facing and beating a solid team in a bowl and getting a nice trip out of it are 100 percent without meaning, then the majority of the sport wasn’t worth caring about to start with. And I just don’t think that’s the case.