A. Can we all agree the play-in games are an abomination and should be disowned post haste? OK. Moving on...
B. It took a while for it to click for me that two of the #1 seeds actually had more difficult games, against what used to be #15 seeds; so if it's helpful for anyone else still struggling with it, just think of it this way: the four new teams in the expanded tournament are coming from big conferences and the two winners of their games end up slotted in at 12 or wherever. They just push everyone else downward in the S-curve. It's not that we've added 4 #17's from lower conferences and are making them play it off against the #16's.
C. The two #16's that get killed off are most likely to be two teams that had no business winning their weak conference tournament, and never would have had a chance against a #1. So we're strengthening the field of 64 that way, too. It's the surprise winners of the Sun Belt or CAA that used to populate two or three of the bottom seeds, leaving only one semi-legitimate 16 playing a 1. Now, we're most likely eliminating those guys before they even get to Thursday. Note that the winners of those play-in games are the two ultimate 16's that play the two 1's that don't get what used to be 15's. So, it's quite likely that in the average tournament, each of the #1 seeds has a tougher game than it would have under the old format, despite the fact that only two new teams are being added to the 64 team field out of the better conferences and displacing two bottom dwellers.
D. The reason this article was written, and the reason we're all reacting so harshly to it, is the simple fact that we, Duke, lost as a 2 seed to a 15 seed last year. It's still fresh in my memory, I can guarantee you that. But if it had just been Missouri last year suffering through that ignominious fate, no one would have turned their attention to "When will a 1 seed fall?"