I would assume that the parents/players would prefer to be at the top of AA than in the middle of AAA.
I would say the same for AA teams from GSE, Ducks.
I don't think the travel is all that different between AA and AAA (for the in state games, anyways). Last year, we travelled to San Jose and got all our league games against the Sharks over a single weekend. The difference is when you have a collection of parents/players who want to travel all over the continental US and the 10 provinces to attend "showcase" tournaments where no CA AAA team can really crack the top 20.