I don't mind the super district approach, it eliminates loaded districts for the most part. Though dividing the Northeast District teams between East-West and then lumping the eastside dominated LEL into the west tilted the power a bit in the west direction. Though one was going back to the east anyway at regional, so that's overall minor. Really, so are some of the lopsided scores. But in this case, a handful could have been eliminated if the top seeds were locked into a bye.
And not taking the bye really has nothing to do with staying sharp, it's more padding stats, especially if you have a player who can reach a certain milestone or climb up a leaderboard. I don't really blame a coach for that, but just saying what if Kobe Johnson gets hurt in a meaningless game. I'm sure Bob Huggins would privately have a "WTF" chat with the McKinley coach.
But I get it, there isn't a perfect solution so probably not worth dwelling over in the grand scheme of things.