smellyshoes - I understand your point but Heymann beating Ramsey by 30 seconds or so is much less damaging than Plattsburgh's 58 second spread. There are simply going to be many more displacing runners around Platt's 4 and 5 at regionals/NCAA's than there will be around Heymann and Ramsey.
Suppose there are "a lot" of people between Ramsey and Heymann at regionals or NCAA's. If you take the regionals results from last year and move Ramsey back 30 seconds off of Heymann, like you suggest, he comes in 15th in 26:19 as opposed to Heymann's 8th in 25:49, a 7 point difference.
Plattsburgh lost nearly than many points this weekend, at a very small meet, between their 3 (Grimm 15:45 in 6th) and 4 (Sico 16:07 in 12th). Again, there are going to be many more runners between Platt's #3 and 4 than there will be between Ramsey and Heymann.
Look at regionals from last year again. This weekend Grimm and Sico had 22 seconds between them. Assume that Grimm has had some good improvement from XC last year and he finishes this year around where Ben Jackson did last year (16th, right around Wager, Stenuf, Williams, Greenlaw etc). If you call Sico Platt's #4 and use the 22 seconds gap between he and Grimm from this weekend, the two would finish in 16th and 30th respectively (26:20 and 26:42). In other words, its a 14 pt difference between a loose 3/4 spread vs a 7 pt difference if Heymann crushes Ramsey.
Then you have to consider the same thing between the #4 and #5 runners. Again, the 58 second spread is going to make a huge difference at a championship caliber meet and Platt's spread is, right now, twice as big as SLU's.