Is The Regular Season Losing Its Meaning?

In the 2012 NHL playoffs this year, the Los Angels Kings had a great run, losing only a few games on their way to the Stanley Cup playoffs.  This is a run you would expect from a number one team, facing easy opposition and proving themselves as a better team in the regular season, it would make sense that they would have a run like this, right?  The only issue with this fact is that, the Los Angles Kings were the number eight seed.  They went through the number one seed Vancouver like a hot knife through butter, and then the number two seed, and then the fourth, to gain a spot in the finals.  Now this improbable run suddenly hasn’t become so improbable anymore.  In the NBA playoffs, Philadelphia, the number 8 seed in the east, knocked off the number 1, Chicago.  And what seems even worse is that fans seem to be expecting this now.  All they want their team to do is get in playoffs, seed doesn’t matter anymore, because anyone can win, as the teams skill has evened out.  The long regular seasons of the NHL and NBA seem particularly futile, when it all seems to do down the drain so easily.  It does make good revenue for the teams and the league, but to all intents and purposes, all the regular season does is sort out the awful teams.  And now the MLB is talking about expanding the amount of teams that get into the playoffs, despite the fact that baseball has the most exciting playoff chase BECAUSE so few teams qualify.