The "one true champion" got mocked because then the B12 turned around and tried to have their cake and eat it and declare co-champions. The actual concept wasn't mocked.
As far as improving everyone's schedule by replacing a conf game with an OOC game, that only works if they actually win, right? Right now, the 9th conference game adds a record of 5-5 to conference teams. You have focused solely on the extra 5 losses, but ignore the extra 5 guaranteed wins.
So if you replace that game with an OOC game and the conference goes 4-6 in those OOC games, you actually just made the overall record shittier than it was before. That's being ignored. The conference has to go better than 5-5 to have any benefit. Is going, say, 6-4, an improvement of one game over .500 for the entire conference that big of a deal? Given that the B12 had OOC losses to 3 Sun Belt teams last year as well as a very narrowly-averted disaster loss to something called Houston Baptist, that's hardly a guarantee. Also, our TV partners are not going to pay the same for TCU-Abilene Christian as they would for TCU-West Virginia. So either you lose TV money or you schedule loseable games. Period.
Remember also that the missed conference game for some of the teams is going to be a shitty team. Someone is going to miss Kansas, someone is going to miss the 9th best team, someone is going to miss the 8th best team, etc. It isn't like every mid-level B12 team is going to miss OU and play East Popcorn State instead and magically now be 7-5 instead of 6-6. Someone is going to miss Kansas and maybe lose an extra game instead now.