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one could consider 1st and 2nd round NCAA basketball tourney games as exhibitions.  Sure there are some upsets, but things don't really get serious until the sweet 16.

But I mean they aren't.

You can certainly say it's not a fair system, and I don't disagree.  But they are part of a tournament to consider a national champion.  At best a game between two middling Big XII teams determines who goes to the Alamo Bowl, where most of the best players likely won't play, and really, there is very little merit involved in bowl selection beyond the New Years Six, so in reality, there isn't even that much on the line.

one could consider 1st and 2nd round NCAA basketball tourney games as exhibitions.  Sure there are some upsets, but things don't really get serious until the sweet 16.

it's all just games of entertainment

the hoops tourney is wildly entertaining because of upsets and cinderellas and brackets

they could easily just invite the top 16 seeds.

I understand there have been a few champions and teams that played in the final that were outside the 4 seed number, but......... that doesn't seem right to OAM

Upsets are great, just not when you're crowning a champion. 
You did make me consider something else, though - many of the same guys here who poo-poo the idea of a team not winning their own division/conference being in the playoff or (like in 2011) winning the NC in football are the same guys who love Cinderella in March and have no problem with a team who finished 4th in their conference winning it all (like 2013-4). 
UConn finished 4th in the AAC (not a great conference) and was Louisville's bitch, going 0-3 vs their own conference's champion.  But they won the NC.  I wouldn't call their tournament run weak, but after beating a 1-seed, only had to face an 8-seed in the final. 
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And that's celebrated.  Don't get me wrong, I don't care, but if we're having the conversation....that's celebrated?!? 
So no, it's not for me.  And that's perfectly fine.  But ick.

Upsets are great, just not when you're crowning a champion. 
You did make me consider something else, though - many of the same guys here who poo-poo the idea of a team not winning their own division/conference being in the playoff or (like in 2011) winning the NC in football are the same guys who love Cinderella in March and have no problem with a team who finished 4th in their conference winning it all (like 2013-4). 
UConn finished 4th in the AAC (not a great conference) and was Louisville's bitch, going 0-3 vs their own conference's champion.  But they won the NC.  I wouldn't call their tournament run weak, but after beating a 1-seed, only had to face an 8-seed in the final. 
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And that's celebrated.  Don't get me wrong, I don't care, but if we're having the conversation....that's celebrated?!? 
So no, it's not for me.  And that's perfectly fine.  But ick.

So 2018 OSU, which very well might have been the best team in the nation (i.e. just try to prove that negative) and won their conference, was excluded from the CFP because of one bad upset to a team that legitimately didn't belong on the same field with them. It was just a night where everything went wrong for OSU and everything went right for Purdue.

So upsets are meaningful when they're in the regular season and keep great teams out of the "tournament" i.e. CFP, but they shouldn't be used to crown a champion when you actually have a tournament with legitimate and fair entry criteria (winning your conference)?

Upsets are great, just not when you're crowning a champion. 
You did make me consider something else, though - many of the same guys here who poo-poo the idea of a team not winning their own division/conference being in the playoff or (like in 2011) winning the NC in football are the same guys who love Cinderella in March and have no problem with a team who finished 4th in their conference winning it all (like 2013-4). 
UConn finished 4th in the AAC (not a great conference) and was Louisville's bitch, going 0-3 vs their own conference's champion.  But they won the NC.  I wouldn't call their tournament run weak, but after beating a 1-seed, only had to face an 8-seed in the final. 
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And that's celebrated.  Don't get me wrong, I don't care, but if we're having the conversation....that's celebrated?!? 
So no, it's not for me.  And that's perfectly fine.  But ick.

I don't think it's celebrated.

I think most people enjoy the early upsets, and then like things to sort themselves out.

I also think there is a major difference when you are discussing the purpose of each.  I don't think many people would argue the purpose of the NCAA tournament is to determine the best team, it's to crown a champion.  So whatever.  The CFP is so small, it's supposed to (I guess) determine the best team.  If that's the case I'm not sure how a team that wasn't the best in a small pool could be the best team in a larger pool...which includes everyone from the smaller pool.

IMHO, in the NFL, in college football (or the college basketball tournament) it's impossible to use the postseason to determine "who is best". All you get is "who is best on THAT day". 

Any single-elimination format is still incomplete information. You're not actually determining who is best; you're determining who gets to call themselves the champion. I think the CFP does a good job of winnowing down the field to teams that have a legitimate claim they *might* be "the best", but a 4-team single-elimination playoff format doesn't actually conclusively prove that--it just tells us which one gets to call themselves National Champion. 

In 2007, the New York Giants were not the best football team in the NFL... But they're the Super Bowl Champions nonetheless.

Baseball/basketball/hockey, where you have a 7-game series, gets you a LOT closer to actually determining who is legitimately the best. Obviously a 7-game series is actually still incomplete, but it's close enough for government work. You can't do that in football due to the violence of the sport. Yet whether it's the NFL or college football, the one who emerges victorious is still champion even if we're never quite sure they're "the best". 

Old bowl system, +1 (if necessary)

If that's the case I'm not sure how a team that wasn't the best in a small pool could be the best team in a larger pool...which includes everyone from the smaller pool.

You obviously aren't the only person to make this argument.  I'm not arguing with you here, I'm arguing with the concept.  

Your comment here presupposes that each league champion IS the best team in their league but the fact is that they aren't, especially with divisions and a CG.  The bottom line is that the best team simply doesn't always win for a variety of reasons including HFA, the superior team having a bad day, the inferior team having a great day, etc.  

Auburn wasn't better than Bama the year they beat Bama on the kick-6 and your Spartans weren't better than Ohio State in 2015.  Both of those results deprived the best team in that league that year of a chance to go to the CG and thus of a chance to win the league title.  In both cases the superior/losing team ended up tied with the inferior/winning team in the final standings due to the superior/losing team winning all of their other games while the inferior/winning team lost to a team not nearly as good as the one that the superior team lost to.  

In 2013 Auburn lost by 2TD's to an LSU team that Bama beat by 3TD's.  In 2015 MSU lost to a Nebraska team that didn't even finish .500.  

I understand WHY we use H2H to break ties but I'm not sure that it actually gives the Championship to the better team in a lot of cases.  In cases like these where the tied teams finished "and 1" it is inherent that the H2H winner had a worse loss.  Ie, Auburn's loss to LSU in 2013 was worse than Bama's loss to Auburn that year and MSU's loss to UNL in 2015 was obviously worse than tOSU's loss to MSU that year.  

By using H2H we reward the team with the best win but we also punish the team with the best loss.  

Most of this would be mitigated if everybody used a B12 type system without divisions.  

My point is simply that the "league champion" isn't always the best team from that league.  Usually it is, but it is also frequently just the team that had their bad day at a good time or the team that got the easier schedule or the team that got HFA in the key game, etc.  That is why I think there should be at least one at-large spot.