I think the thing that the CFP committee got wrong, and that caused most of the "Oh No, it doesn't work" fears is way way way to much deference to conference championship games and conference standings.

Example #1: There is no way that PSU should have been ranked higher than OSU. OSU beat PSU on the field. Because the conferences are now so huge, the schedules are typically unbalanced, and so it's not necessarily true that the best two teams makes the CCG. (that's a different problem). Also, the committee was really really afraid of "devaluing" the CCG, and "punishing teams" for losing in the CCG. That's fine IF and ONLY IF your process makes sure that you have the best two teams in the CCG.

Example #2: Texas. Texas has struggled all year to put together a full game. Texas when they are ON is really really good. When they are OFF, they are good, but just good. They didn't deserve to be ranked as highly as the were JUST because they made the SEC CCG.

Yes, this has a bit of "20/20 Hindsight" but I also think most of this was pretty obvious on selection day.

Rankings should have been:
#1 Oregon (Seed #1)
#2 Ohio State (Seed #5)
#3 Georgia (Seed #2)
#4 ND (Seed #6) {note I think there was evidence before for ND and Georgia to be flipped, especially with the Beck injury, but in the end, that was close and didn't really matter}
#5 Texas (Seed #7)
#6 PSU (Seed #8)
#x BSU (Seed #3)
#y ASU (Seed #4)

That would have lead to....
#1 Oregon vs #8 PSU ... and a Oregon #1 seed win
#2 Georgia vs #7 Texas ... and likely another Georgia #2 seed win
#3 BSU vs #6 ND ... and a ND win
#4 ASU vs #5 OSU ... and a OSU win

The problem is, mostly, they completely screwed up placement of OSU and Texas...