We are talking about 19 teams here. The number doesn't matter if most are bad.
The quality of the teams is more important and neither region has much quality. At least the south central has 2 additional teams challenging the front 2, although the front 2 are likely the weakest front 2 out of all the regions.
Your 3rd argument only confirms what I have said. There were only 2 decent teams in the mid atlantic. If princeton was at full strength they would have possibly bee a 3rd decent team. The south central had 4 fighting for 2 spots. The mid atlantic had only 2 running for the 2 spots. The rest in both regions are fillers. The same could probably even be said about a few others - the great lakes sucked this year and the northeast had a ton of fillers but not much depth.