You say that the region is weaker, however I think it is pretty solid this year.
Flynn is a amazing first and foremost. His team looks good too, their gap is a little wide for my liking, but with a front runner like flynn, it skews things. Van Alstyne needs to step up in a huge way for these guys to go. I think that is a possibility
Emory will place high as a team at nationals. Not to mention Fyffe 14:40 and All American Meade. Also winterhalter who seemed to have a great race at UAA this year. They look to be way better than last year. This team is amazing.
Yea, Centre isn't as strong as last year, but they are still a solid team. Parks is always consistent and Cahill seems to have stepped it up.
Trinity actually ran faster times than the 2007 UT Tyler team at Chili Pepper and would have beaten them had you put their times from this year into that race. Not to mention they have an xc national qualifier and silver at scac (write), an 800 all american (brush), and a 3:52 guy who ran has run 31:37xc 10k (armstrong).
Now presumably the rankings are correct, you have:
Emory at number 1 which is around a 10-15 team at nats
Lynchberg at 2 with a studly flynn
Trinity at 3 who is actually a better team than the 07 Tyler team and chock full of mid-distance talent.
Just tossing this out there, but the region looks fine to me. Maybe people are more focused on training and less on posting which is probably a good thing.