The electoral college is a thing of beauty. Otherwise cali and ny would pick the president every election. Think of the electoral college as the World Series. You have 50 contests instead of 7. Each contest though is still weighted by the number of people in each state.
Remove the states from the idea; just let every American individual have an equal vote on who the president will be. Not every New Yorker and Californian is going to be the same fellow.
I take it you don't know the difference betwee a democracy and a republic.
Popular vote is just majority rules and majority rule is just two wolves and a sheep voting on what to eat for dinner.