To a degree that is brilliantly put, to a degree that is nonsense. The system where the national leagues of the last year are the qualifications for the international leagues of the current year works quite well. It is just that group phase + elimination phase is better suited for a month long tournament (national teams at European/World Cup) and not a tournament that runs along a whole season. So if you replace it with large enough groups - say groups of 8 or 10 teams and have a shorter elimination round at the end (a tournament style over few weeks and one-off games f.e.) that could work. Now you have your „league“ and can keep the national one as well. Just organise those group of tens/eights according to their strength and slot the clubs either by country or team coefficient. That way, the rank in the league tells you if you play in Europe or no, while the success of your club over the laft 5 or 10 years tells you where you are going to play. In short: the rankings work - somehow.
What really is killing the smaller clubs is the qualification stage happening over the summer. It‘s less the games per se, but the uncertainty accompanying it. We always were better when we knew in May where we would play (say CL group phase) than wen we had to play 2-4 rounds over 8 weeks in the summer to get to the same place. So, allow more teams straight to a larger group phase please, even if they don‘t get prize money for it.
Sorry for rambling again, I just so would love to have some deciding powere here instead of these apparent morons (;-)) that can decide them. No matter that they probably have a lot more information than I do...