that is somewhat true. However, without the EC, candidates for the presidency would only bother with the 6 or 7 largest states, and everywhere else would be ignored. To carry it to an extreme, you could see these same states being lavished with massive pork barrel spending by the Presidents, in hopes of either being reelected or their party successor being elected, while the rest of the nation languishes. After 200 years of this, the nation might very well have a sharp 'us vs. them', high population vs. low population states, attitude.
Why don't we see this nowadays? The "big" states are still worth many more electoral votes than the small states. Indeed, the road to the presidency can be traveled using only the eleven largest states and unlike in your scenario, those states are winner take all (those eleven states, in 2004, could've been won with just 27% of the popular vote nationwide assuming that candidate received no votes in any other states and won only a single vote plurality). So using your logic it would make sense to put all your resources into winning those states. Instead, campaigns target these swing states where small swings in vote margins can deliver the state's electoral votes to your camp.
Plus, without the EC, the US would likely not have the two party system it has now, but a plethora of smaller parties centered around a few issues. It's hard to see how a presidential candidate would get anything close to a majority vote. In fact, without the EC, the presidential election process just wouldn't work as is... you'd have to have something more along the lines of European elections; they deal with multi-party systems all the time....
Without an electoral college, there'd have to be a run-off placed into the system to ensure a majority was achieved as only 2 of the last 5 elections have produced a popular vote majority winner. However, even with a system I forsee a two party system of sorts; instead of just having two parties, you'd have two alliances of parties, left and right, which would jointly agree on a ticket beforehand to ensure they had the best chance of achieving an outright majority.
No system makes more sense than a Popular Vote with run-off for electing the US President. I can certainly see why an Electoral College was put into the Constitution (frankly the late 1700s were not a democratic perioid when viewed in today's light), but its time had run out when states began apportioning electors based on popular vote instead of the vote of the state legislatures. At that juncture, it no longer made any sense to use the popular vote inside a bastardized system that could elect a person who did not receive a clear majority of the national popular vote.