Let's put it this way. Currently, in order to win Ohio's electoral votes (I use them because it's a battleground state) you must appeal to the whole state. Columbus and Cleveland cannot dwarf the rest of the state. However, all the urban and suburban areas of the NATION can easily dwarf all the rural areas, thus eliminating the power of rural areas almost entirely. As it stands, the electoral college effectively limits the power of cities so that they are, for the most part, surrounded by a comparable electorate. For example, the 3 major cities in Ohio add up to about 6 million - the population of Ohio is about 11 million. So, the electoral college limits the contest to winning the state and allows for the needs of the 6 million outside of the urban areas of Ohio to have theoretically as much weight as the 6 million IN urban areas. If voting was done by strictly popular vote, the interests of the urban in Ohio (which are distinctly different than that of the rural) would be joining forces with every other urban and suburban area, thus dwarfing out the rural and, incidentally, entire states such as Montana. As it stands, sure, a candidate could theoretically focus on only places like California, but if they really started to ignore the interests of the large patch of rural states in the midwest the combined electoral votes would be a major loss. This way, since the number of electors is still based on population, it still works to represent the overall interests of the American people while at the same time preserving the interests of the people who are more spread out.
And, yes, America is a republic, which is very different from a flat-out democracy which is what the founding fathers were so much against.
EDIT: Oh, in regards to the US ever changing voting procedures, I don't see it happening anytime in the next decade at least sad to say. The fact is, the current voting system is what helps hold the two "major" parties in power according to Duverger's law. And, since the two major parties control the laws of election....well, you see where I'm going
Frankly, at the moment, there are only two reasonable (and unfortunately unlikely) ways I see change happening. First, through the rise of a third party that, after gaining power, will not turn bad. I think, because of their principles, the Libertarians are pretty benign in that regard and would be able to be trusted that if they were to gain enough power they would stick to their fight for a new voting standard and enact change. The second possibility is for the American people to collectively take a stand and fight for a change - and with enough people we can bypass the bipartisan legislators on the capitol and pass an amendment to the constitution. Neither are things I think are likely to occur anytime soon. In order for the people to collectively start to rise up for change, they need to be educated enough to realize that change is needed and that there is something better. And with the two "major" parties controlling government, which, in turn, controls education, that is not going to happen except for the few mavericks such as myself who like to seek information on their own and have no qualms about rejecting the "system."
To be honest, I think we need a couple constitutional amendments regarding elections and parties. First, we need to get rid of this idea that campaign contributions are a form of speech and, second, we need to get rid of this idea that corporations are, legally, like people. Corporations should not be allowed to donate to campaigns. They already get their vote through all their employees who, if they like who they work for, will already care about the well-being of the company. We need a constitutional amendment that states that all states must count votes in a single method - and one which is statistically fair to up-and-coming parties. They can then decide how to distribute their electoral votes as they choose. I don't really care WHICH method so much as I care that there is a fair method. Secondly, we need a constitutional amendment strictly limiting the rights and abilities of parties. The founding fathers disliked political parties so much that they didn't even acknowledge their existence in the constitution. Well, they exist here now, and we need to get something IN there to strictly limit their power so that they are, once again, only a means of quickly identifying a candidates general ideals and nothing more.
Of course, there's one problem with all this: enough people need to be educated regarding all of this to have enough force to bypass the bipartisan federal government and get these amendments which would cut into their control. And, like I said, with them being the ones educating us, I'm not sure it will ever happen.