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I'm from the midwest (Illinois and Michigan), currently live in Maryland. I grew up with systems that allowed all teams to make the playoffs, and love it. We even had a statewide MS tournament (but you can't have a NCAA national football championship cause kids will miss class - oops, I'm sorry, wrong subject!)
Having seen teams that have to sit home in playoffs, I prefer to see an open tournament at the HS level. Yeah, you might have a blowout like described here in a first round game, but after the first couple of games, many of the games get really good and tight. I don't believe that you need to seed so that #1 plays #1000 - #1000 will get knocked out by almost anyone (without having to suffer the 115-2 embarrassment), and you could give #1 an easy game without taking them that far down in level of play.
I coach AAU, and frequently see horrific mismatches where a top-notch national team gets put against a newly formed local team, with the 70-10 blowout being the result. Not much fun for anyone, and good tournament directors try to keep that type of stuff from happening.
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