Sounds like it's about you. You can create accountability and competition without a college size roster. It seems like these bigger roster are just the big money grab.
Digging in deeper to your love for that big roster. Is it really about accountability and Competition or is it about you? In the end will you give athletes a chance to step up or will you always go with your "gut" feeling and not trust your weaker links in game time situations? How do you do you give chances with the short time limits? Just sounds like anymore than 16 is a cash cow.
The next question is,in July where will your numbers be? Who will all together give up the sport? The more I think about it, sounds like everything is about you. Maybe you have an issue developing players and need to have that "team competition"? In the end it will all come out.