What do I mean? At the moment a lot of leagues are extremely unbalanced, whether that be a division where the red side is much stronger than the blue, or a situation where in for example one of four division 2 leagues is much stronger and therefore harder to get out of than the others.
How can this be fixed? Rather simply, though as with as simple fixes its not without problems but still will be much better than the current random process.
Five teams promote to division 1 from division 2. My fix would mean the strongest of those teams would promote to whichever conference was weakest. The strongest team would have to be decided by National Ranking (this is the less than perfect part) and the Conferences weighted by average National Ranking of the 8 teams at the end of the previous season. The second highest team would go to the other conference and the following teams would alternate between conferences up to the point that all places are filled in one of the conferences, since four teams could have relegated from one conference.
In the lower divisions of course this becomes slightly more complex. However, its still possible to follow this system. For example in division 2 where there are four leagues, National Ranking again can be used to get an average score for each league. The top rated division 3 team would therefore promote to the weakest division 2 and into the weakest conference of that division. The second strongest team into the weakest conference of the second weakest league and so on.
The ultimate aim would be to better balance the leagues so that conferences are more equal and the leagues within each division are also better balanced.
I think a similar system would have to be followed with the relegated teams.