Funny. You miss the point, though. You may not think the games have no meaning, but this is a bit of an exceptional year. Lots of folks say they don't think this, or they don't think that. Unfortunately, none of us really know the facts. You don't know. I don't know. It's speculation.
Bingo. That's all it is. Don't mean to be so dismissive but it's safe to say that a lot of this is just smoke and mirrors. For instance, I don't care if either Kings 2 or Ducks 2 were the absolute worst teams in AA and most deservedly should be dropped to A. It'll never happen because they're required to field 2 AA teams to support their AAA teams. A lot of this is a foregone conclusion. I'll go out on a limb here and predict that this year's AA will look A LOT like last year's AA, and will be shocked if they even implement a 2-flight system.
I hope you are correct. Last season may have not been perfect but I'd venture to say it was better than a somewhat subjective flight system could be. At least it removes the politics from the equation.
As for clubs needing to have two AA teams to support their AAA team, I think it's simply two AA teams at any level that would be sufficient. For example, the Gulls have just two AA teams in the club (according to their declarations on the SCAHA site) and both are Peewee. This appears to be enough to support their 14AAA and 16AAA teams.
The Jr. Ducks are well-stocked with AA teams. It appears they have two teams each at the 12u, 14u and 16u levels. They declared an 18AA team as well. My thought is that, if need be, they could drop a AA team to A and be just fine. It wouldn't affect their Tier 1 eligibility.
The Jr. Kings (once again, according to their declarations on the SCAHA site) are not as well-stocked as the Ducks but could still afford to drop the weaker BTAA team. They declared two 14AA teams and two 12AA teams. Dropping a team would leave them with three AA teams - one above the minimum required.
Out in Riverside, the Jr. Reign have an 18AAA team. To support this they have four AA teams. They have 12AA, 14AA, 16AA and 18AA teams. They could drop their BTAA team and still have three AA teams so the Tier 1 team would be unaffected.
CAHA rules 8.1.b and 8.3 say that the clubs need two AA teams to support a Tier 1 team. The rules don't specify what level those teams must be.
What have I missed?