No matter the subdivision in Division I football, there should always be a premium on winning your conference championship to have a claim in the postseason; if you do not win your conference title, then the best you can do is hope and wait to be selected.
And we are still wondering why Division I-FCS conferences have been laughing at us in Division I-FBS for quite a long time. In 1978 they too started off as a four-team playoff and expanded as the years went by and they now have this format: each conference champion in Division I-FCS (except the Ivy League, SWAC, and MEAC whom abstains) has an automatic bid to the Division I-FCS playoff and its remaining at-large bids go to the highest-ranked remaining teams in the rankings via the Division I-FCS playoff committee. As the years go by we may eventually incorporate more of Division I-FCS elements at Division I-FBS (as we already did with overtime). If you keep the Division I-FBS CFP at four, why not just have New Year's Eight bowls?
Rose (Big Ten champ vs Pac-12 champ)
Fiesta (Mountain West champ vs at-large)
Cotton (Big XII champ vs at-large)
Sugar (SEC champ vs at-large)
Peach (American champ vs at-large)
Orange (ACC champ vs at-large)
Citrus (Conference USA champ vs MAC champ)
Sun (Sun Belt champ vs at-large)
Two of these NY8 bowls rotate as Division I-FBS semifinal playoff bowls and each Division I-FBS conference champion gets an auto-bid to a NY8 bowl if not in the CFP and the remaining at-large NY8 spots go to the highest-ranked remaining teams in the Division I-FBS CFP rankings.
Texas A&M Aggie Class of '96