Like it or not, high school tournaments are divided up by geography. The idea of shipping some struggling programs 200 miles across the state just because other programs didn't get all 14 guys to state is just plain impractical and kind of silly.
In these days of tight school budgets, a school with a struggling program might start looking at having to go from Atchison to Elkhart for Regionals as a good reason to drop the program. Is that really worth the trade-off (although I bet I know at least one answer to that!).