NCAA realignment is depressing because, while the MAC hasn't been largely affected by it, that doesn't mean that they're immune to the collateral damage. Last year it was big stuff happening with the SEC and Big East. Now we're hearing that the WAC may cease to exist after 2013, and the Sun Belt/Conference USA keep adding new teams, including schools who recently made the hop to FBS. Even the CAA could be in dire straits.
We've been pretty fortunate and, in all honesty, I've felt particularly blessed to enjoy an undisturbed alliance of 12 schools since 1999, two years before I started following college athletics. If you look at the historical timeline, they weathered slow exodus in the 40s and 50s early on and that could've been curtains for the MAC. We would have never existed. And yet they added schools who stayed seemingly forever. Exceptions: Marshall, UCF and Temple. And look: NIU came back!
Every conference realigns their affiliations for a variety of reasons. But lots of these conference have seen fundamental shifts, rending rivalries asunder and changing the geographic footprint. The MAC has seen its changes but has mostly stayed in place as a foothold in the Great Lakes region. I'm glad I built that bomb shelter.