the winter Olympics are better than the summer ones. Only one team sport - ice hockey. The other sports and events are actually interesting, unlike the boring summer ones.
The intervening years should be for regional/area championships - Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia. If world championships are every other year, then have the regional champs in that extra year - Europeans are next summer. Do away with Commonwealth Games and Francophonie as they have nothing to do with any real identity (British empire is extinct anyway and who cares about French crap), but make the American (Pan-Am) championship something worthwhile, which it is not at the moment.
Bring back the world cup format (4 teams) as opposed to worlds as they now exist, at least for one of the world championship slots. It is different from "National" teams, but still has a "team" format. But it has to be seen to be a step to the Olympics in some way or it won't capture the interest of the public.
In fact make champions from the Regional meets as a qualifier for worlds/olympics and tighten the auto standards for non-regional champions. In other words have some incentive for being at the Area championship.