For my idea, I'm with those who want to go back to 10-team conferences, but I also know it isn't going backward. 16 teams is 2 groups of 8, so in effect, if the conferences agreed to pair off pods, each of them would look like pairs of 8-team conferences under one umbrella.
As for only having 3 annual opponents, who looks forward to more than that each season? For Florida, I know we look forward to Tennessee, Georgia, and FSU. FSU is OOC, so if you had to replaced them, I guess it'd be LSU. If Gators fans were told we'd only play UTK, UGA, and LSU every year, and everyone else every other year, we'd be really okay with that. No, most won't end up with 3 sexy teams like that - acutally no one would. Probably 2 at the most. But still - it would be orchestrated in a way in which no one is stuck with 3 duds to play every year.
But back to the caste system - that's pretty much the polar opposite of what I'm advocating for. If the P5 is comprised of 64 teams or 66 or 80, I don't care, I just want them all to have an equal shot at the national championship. That means if they win their pod/division/conference, they're in the playoff. With how it is today, everything is so out of balance, I'm not an advocate for such things. But if conferences and scheduling and formatting is all uniform, I'm all for it.
Any team winning its 16-team conference would have earned it, 100% of the time. Once they earn their way into a playoff, from there, they'd earn whatever they win. Whether its Oregon State or Oklahoma or Ole Miss or Maryland or Iowa - there would be no more "paper" 12-0 teams.....no more backing into a playoff or NCG.
I think the idea most would be against (especially helmet team peoples) is the equal 6/6 home/away games for EVERYONE, every year. That would cut out some of the advantages helmets have now - 8-9 home games means major dollars. Nuh uh. 6/6 for everyone, every year.