Well, like I said, it doesn't matter; the removal of the electoral college might constitute some kind of moral victory for populist types, but in terms of how the republican polity works, no function of our political system would actually change all that much.
The electoral college in theory is supposed to protect against regional specific groups, whether a majority or minority, who are united in an interest which opposes the well-being of the republic in the long term (factionalism or its regional-specific variant, sectionalism). The actual explanation for how it does so is hard even for me to understand and cannot be easily communicated; it didn't work out well even in its own time which is why the 12th amendment overhauled the system, unsuccessfully to my mind since we ultimately had a Civil War anyway. The electoral college could never subvert factionalism or sectionalism, constants in every political system known to man and always present in the United States, as the federalists hoped; it is especially useless nowadays, when a universal media, highly developed transportation system, and mobile economy ensures that political ideologies are results of personality more than region. Simply put, liberals, moderates, and conservatives are lead all over the country, and while majorities exist everywhere, the electoral system provides a misleading estimate of where they are situated; some regions of New York State are very conservative, and put representatives in state legislates to that effect, and even in New York City it is not uncommon to have republican mayors or governors.
Part of the reason for the dysfunction of the electoral college is that the Founding Fathers, and especially Madison, underestimated the power of factionalism; it is an irresistible historical inevitability, as the immediate growth and intense opposition of the Democratic-Republicans and Federalists testifies.