I love the idea of the balanced schedule, where each team plays each other team twice, home and away. A symmetrical, logical system where the team with the best record at the end of the season has a rightful claim to being the best team in the league. LA winning the Supporters Shield in 2011 showed the worth of the team better than winning the MLS Cup - the luck involved in a one-off knock out tournament (even with home and away legs) makes it less of a true test of greatness. BUT! The sheer size of the territory encompassed by the MLS make a balanced schedule too difficult to manage. Adding weeks of travel over the course of the season takes a huge toll on the players. Having extended road trips, where the players basically lived back east for weeks at a time meant long periods where the HDC was empty, and the home fans were left with crappy internet streams to follow the team. This years schedule with games focused in the West has meant less travel, fewer gaps in the home game schedule, and more opportunity to develop the natural geographic rivalries that will help grow the sport. 3 games against each of San Jose, RSL, Seattle has been great for LA and its fans! Seattle and Portland playing each other 3 times in the regular season has been great for MLS! The East/West division echos the other American sports, that developed divisions because it took too damn long to take the train from San Francisco to Chicago, and so needed a playoff tournament to choose a champion. So . . . all said, I think I like the new "unbalanced" schedule, even if it means the supporters shield loses its relevance. Since the playoffs and MLS Cup are not going away, we might as well keep the advantages of divisionally weighted schedule.
There also aren't many other leagues with such long and frequent travel. That's really a factor in the daily grind. For that reason alone the unbalanced schedule has advantages.
It’s not just the Supporters’ Shield losing its relevance though. Look no further than San Jose who benefited from a schedule that saw them play more home games against stronger Western Conference teams than away games. It’s impossible for MLS to know which teams are going to be stronger in a given year (e.g. San Jose this year) so weighting can’t help, and indeed the unbalanced schedule itself will create outliers – in a balanced schedule I don’t believe San Jose has anywhere near the season they did this year and I think next year will bear this out when they have to compete in Champions League.
In a balanced schedule, are the Colts of the NFL a playoff team? No. There isn't going to be a fair (and reasonable) solution to the schedule. But for what it's worth, the unbalanced schedule is the best for the league and the players. People point at leagues like the EPL, but what gets lost by most is that the state of Florida is larger than England. In the case for San Jose, in 2013 it will be completely opposite for them-- they will play the "tougher" opponents away from home more often. This creates parity, which has shown to be a great thing for professional leagues and their fans. The NFL has grown to become America's New Past Time because of the parity model. Every offseason fans can hold out hope that they have a shot at the postseason, and just maybe more. That isn't the case in La Liga or the EPL, where only 5-6 teams have a realistic shot at the Champions League, and maybe just 3 have a shot at the title.