That's the whole point of this tournament, they may not be teams that will win the title, but neither did Morocco during this cup, they lost but did they leave a mark? They did and that's the only thing that matters. If you add in more teams, and a team like Peru suddenly plays in the quarter finals, isn't that a good thing? Or a Chile semi-finals? I am not saying that will happen, of course 90%+ chance that will not happen but the possibility of that is the main reason why we will have more teams.
To be fairly honest, I am down with even more teams, have 64 teams, have 16 groups with 4 teams, make them all play 6 games, twice each other, and then make them play a 32 team round facing each other, once again twice, then 16, then quarter finals, then semi, all twice, and finals would be one game. That would be so many games I don't even know how many, but that would be amazing to watch, could go on for months (could be done all year throughout).
You are not wrong, I believe ( and statistics don't lie ) that there is almost always a team that nobody believes will make it to the final rounds and they do.
The most recent example was Morocco, but we already had Croatia as a surprise in 2018 in the final, in 2002 we had Turkey and South Korea in the semi final...
Anyway, the more teams, the more likely we are to have different teams competing in the final stages.
I am very hopeful about Africa in 2026, with 9 to 10 spots, we will see all the best African teams playing in the cup.
64 teams I think is too much haha, it would be unfeasible to accommodate all these countries.
With 48 teams I already think there is not much condition for the world cup to be held in only one country if it is a small country.
Another fact that I would like to comment on is the following, you can't calculate the level of soccer only with the results in the world cup, I was able to watch most of the matches of Catar 2022, and it was clear how Canada, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Korea improved the level of soccer, they played very well, but by other factors could not get further in the competition.
In the 2026 World Cup, more teams will have the opportunity to evolve the level of soccer, and will have the chance to participate in a knockout round.
This greatly helps a team to become more prepared.