Electoral College - Screwed by Our Smart Politicians Who Will Vote for Us

As we get set for another Presidential race, we should ask ourselves, "Why the heck do we need the Electoral College?". In my view, the Electoral College is another example of wasting taxpayer time and money. Let's look at the definition of the Electoral College as it is defined in Wikipedia :
"The Electoral College consists of the electors appointed by each state who formally elect the President and Vice President of the United States. Since 1964, there have been 538 electors in each presidential election.^[1] Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution specifies how many electors each state is entitled to have and that each state's legislature decides how its electors are to be chosen. U.S. territories are not represented in the Electoral College. The Electoral College is an example of an indirect election, as opposed to a direct election by United States citizens.
The voters of each state, and the District of Columbia, vote for electors to be the authorized constitutional participants in a presidential election. In early U.S. history, some state laws delegated the choice of electors to the state legislature. Electors are free to vote for anyone eligible to be President, but in practice pledge to vote for specific candidates and voters cast ballots for favored presidential and vice presidential candidates by voting for correspondingly pledged electors.^[2][3]
The Twelfth Amendment provides for each elector to cast one vote for President and one vote for Vice President. It also specifies how a President and Vice President are elected. The Twenty-third Amendment specifies how many electors the District of Columbia is entitled to have."
Boy, that is more than a mouthful of legal jargon, even without having to read the amendments too. What it means to me, is we the voters aren't savvy enough to elect the President. If the government doesn't trust the public to elect the President, why should we vote in the first place? Shouldn't each individual's vote count the same as anyone else? I believe, in all states this is true for let's say Senate or Congressional races. Why not do the same for the Presidential race? I would like to think any time a President is elected it is because he has a majority (fifty percent plus) of all votes cast by all American voters. Let's look at a chart for the upcoming election showing the voting power of each state and the District of Columbia (cited from Wikipedia):

Electoral College Map for 2012.

First thing that jumps out at me, the District of Columbia has the same number of votes as Alaska which seems disproportional according to land size. Second thing it shows me, the totals of the ten top populous states carry enough electoral votes for a candidate to win the Presidency if he won all those states and those states were winner take all. If that was the case, the candidate could lose 40 states and the District of Columbia while winning the election. Let's assume the candidate just barely got the plurality of each of the ten top states but lost by large margins in every other state and DC too. Does that seem fair? Would you not feel cheated if you voted for the opposition not in the ten top states? Would this add to voter apathy? Ask Al Gore or Grover Cleveland how it feels to lose with the plurality of the popular vote.
I assume the American public is, on the whole, more educated than when the Electoral College was instituted. With the new verified technology and educated public, why shouldn't we abolish the Electoral College as the nation did away with suffrage by blacks and women?  Can we at least put the referendum on a Presidential ballot for the American voting public to decide if the Electoral College is needed? Maybe the pain Al Gore endured would be soothed while creating a truly democratic election. Let every vote count!
Thank you for your time,
Mike