But yeah, the electoral college is bullshit. The whole premise was to allow the southern states to keep slaves by giving them representation based on population (including slaves) and not actual voters.

No. Read about the constitutional convention. The Electoral College was there before the 3/5 compromise. What the Electoral College is about is promoting federalism.

It is absolutely true that the extra boost states get for their Senators benefits small states, and this was deliberate. The founders mistrusted "the democracy" (which in those days meant, literally "mob rule" to them) and so they didn't have direct election of the President at all. They also mistrusted big cities (and the small states didn't want to be overwhelmed by the big states) so they gave that small boost to the smaller states.

Their vision was that wise men would be appointed by the states as electors and pick the best President. It didn't work out that way: parties appeared almost immediately and electors were picked on partisan lines. The system broke in the election of 1800 and had to be fixed by the 12th Amendment.

Complaining that a President can be elected who doesn't get the majority of the popular vote is like complaining that your car sucks at flying: it isn't designed to do that. What it is designed to do is ensure that a President has broad-based support across the country.

If every state were exactly alike and their interests always ran in parallel, then direct election of the President would be more appealing. Just as people whose beliefs match those of the highest population states would love direct election, people whose beliefs match those of the non-urban, smaller states would ask, "Why should New York and California get to pick the President."

The Electoral College essentially forces a winning President candidate to appeal to a wide variety of interests, not just pander to the urban masses.

If the Electoral College was replaced by direct election, there would still be issues: would there be runoffs? would there be a minimum percentage for victory? (Clinton never got a majority of the popular vote, for example.) Many countries with direct election (France, for example) have runoffs.

A simpler solution would be do what several states have done already (ME and NE, I think), which is to allocate their votes by the results in each Congressional District instead of winner-take-all. They can do this by legislation, rather than Constitutional Amendment. The other idea (which I like much less) is the Compact, which a couple states (MD and one other, I think) have signed onto, which is to cast their Electoral votes for the winner of the popular vote nationally, regardless of the local outcome. It supposedly comes into effect in the states that have signed onto it when a majority of the Electoral votes would be affected by it. (Better to just amend the Constitution if you're gonna do that, IMHO.)