I like your list including Winthrop. It will be interesting to see how they fare since Pat Kelsey seems to finally be genuinely exiting (UMass would need consultation). I would also add Murray State and Belmont for consideration.
#5, I think the prior Big East's issues are rather exaggerated --- it was simply the victim of an unavoidable power grab from the ACC. Just like Utah grabbing the Pac-12 invitation, an unavoidable totem pole situation that did not reflect poorly at all on the Mountain West.
#6, this will run counter a bit to #5, but I say without a doubt that the biggest blunder in the history conference membership decisions was made by Tulane when they voluntarily exited the SEC in the 1960's. They could have rode the bus and cashed huge checks for decades more like Vanderbilt. Then firmly believe that most/all of the Big East departures were self inflicted via the second biggest blunder in rejecting Penn State in 1979 and again in 1981.
Did Penn State have a rich hoops history? No, but as one can see from ESPN 30 for 30's Requiem for the Big East, most were also floundering programs until they chose to unite. PSU has by far the largest fanbase, $$$, and TV attractiveness of any in the Northeast. JoePA tried for years to form an eastern league that included Gtown, Nova, and all sports. They should have had their cake and ate it, too.
#7, it the grand finale ... or grand fail ... :-)
Realignment is also laced with cannibalism. Damage your competition while you also improve yourself. There are three conferences in battle with the AAC for at-large bids outside P5 and Big East: A-10, Mountain West, and WCC. I will omit the impact of football since not an issue here (though I do think it is of moderate assistance to Wichita State to have conference branding and publicity prior to November).
Four 4-team pods mainly just playing each other over and over in volleyball, etc-non-revenus, until conference tournaments--- in hoops, 18 games playing pods twice and others once.
I really believe that the dormant third game of Big Monday would be revived with these four in the West pod. It would be neat to stay up to see VCU at Gonzaga ... the three service academies would be football only, spelled by the best hoops programs that might be attainable. In a perfect world, I would also like to have Dayton and St. Louis:
East: Temple, Cincinnati, ECU, VCU/Army
SE: UCF, USF, Tulane, Memphis
SW: Houston, SMU, Tulsa, Wichita State/Navy
West: San Diego State, BYU, Boise State, Gonzaga/Air Force
Thanks!