Thinking about it, I think that the main effect of the electoral college is to amplify the two-party-ism of the first-past-the-post voting system (by making it that a person with less than 50% of the votes can beat a person with more than 50% of the votes).

I also think that, from the outside, removing the electoral college looks like an easier fix than changing the first-past-the-post nature of the vote.