Just curious. When was the last time missouri/iowa state/kansas/kansas state/colorado won their conference or went to a BCS game? For that matter, when was the last time that Nebraska won the conference or went to a BCS game?
I will grant you the fact that the last BCS game you went to was indeed the MNC game, but come on - you didn't even win your division that year.
Colorado won the conference in 2001, KSU won it in 2003, Kansas won their BCS bowl in 2007, while Missouri won the north division twice in the last 4 years and has become a consistent top 25 program.
The Big 12 was not an easy conference - with Nebraska in it, it was tougher than the Big Ten. The Big 12 has 3 teams in the top ten this year, while the Big Ten has 2 in the top 15, and one of them is Nebraska. As tough as this year's schedule looks, it's not going to be much tougher than last year when we played Oklahoma, Texas, Oklahoma State, Missouri, and Texas A&M.
You're not going to have any more 3-way ties for conference champion in the Big Ten (in the last 10 years, the Big Ten has had 16 conference champions. If the Big 12 determined champions the same way the Big Ten did, Nebraska would have as many conference championships as Iowa in the past 10 years). The Big 12 had multiple national title contenders knocked out of contention because of a game that the Big Ten didn't have to play (the conference championship - Nebraska was knocked out in 1996, Kansas State in 1998, Texas in 2001, and Oklahoma in 2003).
I hate the Big 12 as much as any Husker fan, but that conference had a lot of good football teams in it, and since its formation it has won more national championships than any other conference except for the SEC. I get tired of hearing about how Nebraska doesn't know what it's in for now that it's in the "tough, phycial, superior Big Ten." The Big 12 was a crappy conference that played outstanding football and had just as many 800+ win programs as the pre-Nebraska Big Ten did.