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I would favor a system wherein each congressional district elected a respected, elector, him or herself presidential caliber, and then all the electors would gather in a "presidential conference" and they would then caucus and vote to determine the party's nominee from their midst or from some stellar nominee not in their midst upon whom they agree.

That's a decent idea. You're correct in your assessment that the problem are the primaries.

I'm not sure a plurality, much less a commanding majority would be reached in that system however; I foresee many voting for themselves for the nomination, thus having the "winner" having at most maybe 1-5% of the total vote, which is not exactly a mandate of the GOP as a whole, thus weakening such a candidate considerably in the general election. After all, the Dems would love to hem and haw all day in the general how their GOP opponent only had 5% of the total GOP behind him, especially since their system of selection is so different.

Maybe I'm too cynical, but really, given the last two primaries, I think I have reason to be cynical as far as the GOP is concerned.

I suppose there could be a rule where one couldn't vote for oneself, but then to enforce that rule, open voting would have to be enforced, which would result in voter intimidation, based on back room deals of the "elite".

Really the central "problem" faced in the primaries, to be blunt, is the fact that the majority of the states that vote first, and thus set the tone or momentum of the eventual winner, are not filled with conservatives. See the table labeled "Early State Primaries" here (forgive the Wikipedia reference, but the timeline of primaries is not exactly controversial, at least as a now historical fact, so Wikipedia is a reliable source here).

Note that except for SC, the rest of the states are, at best, mixtures of "moderates to conservatives", with the "moderates" outnumbering the conservatives. I mean, we know that is a fact, I don't think I have to prove that here.

So therein lies the problem. In those states that set the tone, that give the early winner "momentum", there aren't enough conservatives to truly dictate who is actually conservative, to give that person momentum. This is why I said long ago, when all the Palin fans were giving her a pass for not having entered the race when, for example, Romney had, that if she intended to enter the race, she was being foolish, because this is when the real race is decided.

What I've stated is simply realistic, pragmatic fact. We can argue all day about how "the reason the momentum is set so early is because the media hypes it up", but it's pointless to, as the famous song says, "p*** into the wind". So, that is the problem that must be solved, not the media's hype, because we can't do anything about that, but the fact that the GOP has decided, for whatever reason (wink wink) that these states should go first.

So, what I would propose is a change in the way the state's order would be decided. We have the technology now to be able to make this happen. Every registered GOP voter should be given an opportunity to decide which STATE goes first in the primary, then which is second, and so on. It is my belief that there are enough true conservatives in the GOP that care enough about their country to vote appropriately. For example, I live in MD, but I have no fairyland dream that to vote for MD to go first would truly help a true conservative nominee.

That is the only way I can see to truly solve the issue of having moderates rammed down our throat every nomination cycle. That, and/or of course true conservatives (like Palin) actually getting in the race very early, to gain momentum through the old way. (The problem with the latter of course is that the establishment funds the moderate nominees enough that they can sustain early and long campaigns; to that end, we will have to become another "establishment", encouraging true conservatives to get in early, and funding them, if my idea above is unpalatable.)

These are the only two ways I can see of curtailing the establishment we have now, IMO.