BYU won a NC by defeating a 6-6 tsun team under the purely subjective model, so I would say it was flawed. The evolution from pure vote of one team, to vote on a pool and let them play it off nets you a champion at the end of the year that is the right mix of subjective vote and factual on the field result imo.
I don't see a point in continuing to rehash that all a playoff does is award a championship to the team who plays the best at then end of the year. This is well known and accepted as the preferred way to crown a champion. Regular season does still matter in that it helps determine the "worthy of playoff" pool.
As with most things, an extreme version of either model is the least desirable. Some to-be-determined spot in the middle is best.
To your first point, my reference was to the prior system that picked a champion prior to the bowls. But your point is relevant because, as I said, it doesn't matter. Every system is "flawed" in that it will, at least occasionally, crown a champion that was arguably not the "best" team, depending on your definition.
To your second point about the mootness of late season emphasis, my comment was not about what is better or well known and accepted. It was that changing the regional/temporal focus of the season is the effect of the playoff; and therefore this change in focus, moreso than a desire to crown a true champion or to remove unremovable "flaws", should be the basis for preferring or not preferring a playoff.
But an additional comment on your second point: the alleged well known acceptance of a system does not make it superior, per se. In 2002, I think it is entirely possible that USC was playing the best football at the end of the season. If there'd been a 4-team playoff, they may have been in it and may well have won it. Should they have had that opportunity, despite two regular season losses compared to Miami and OSU's zero? To put my comment on your second point a little more succinctly, I don't think appeals to anonymous authority are all that persuasive. Unless what you're saying is, "It's already decided, so there's no point in discussing it, regardless of the merits." In which case I would tend to agree with at least the first part.
To your third point, that is entirely subject to each person's view of what constitute extreme endpoints and middle ground, and so is virtually impossible to assess. Just in one limited example, your own views on what constitute extreme endpoints and reasonable middle ground have probably shifted in the past several years. NTTAWWT, but in an effort to avoid holding polls on who is the best team, should we hold annual polls on what constitutes reasonable middle ground for the championship system?
