No (rational) person cares how many "conference games" you play. Would the MAC be a better conference if they each played 11 conference games?
(Rational) people care how many good teams you play.
The quality of teams you play is determined (in addition to OOC games) largely by the depth of quality in the conference.
Both the ACC and Big10 suffer from the same malady - severe quality dilution through expansion to include less-than-top level programs. And the ACC wasn't all that much to begin with.
(The Big12 is a marginally upgraded and glorified G5 conference)
In the expansion craze:
The ACC added (to a mediocre conference): SMU, Cal, and Stanford. Only the once-per-generation good year from SMU keeps that from being a 100% dilution. So diluted that their top 3 teams (the only ranked teams) - have not played each other even one time. More bad teams - more of the schedule for the good teams that is "meh"
The Big10 added (to a strong conference): Nebraska, Maryland, Rutgers, UCLA, USC, Oregon, and Washington. Only one of those is a ranked team (a very good ranked team) - and the two you might have reasonably expected to add quality value, but didn't, are USC and Nebraska - USC has been hot and cold for the last decade (so there remains reasonable hope)., and Nebraska hasn't been high quality in 20 years (and doesn't look to be making any progress at all at the moment). All the others just dilute quality and create a lot of lousy games for the top teams (which is why you have PSU and Indiana combining for a 19-1 record, without a single victory over a ranked team).
I think one can excuse the Big10 for adding Nebraska - given their very high level history - but the Big10 would be much, much more competitive is they had taken a hard pass on Rutgers and Maryland, and said no thanks to UCLA and Washington (even though they just had there once in a generation year last year). The quality level would have been increased both by simply not having the lousy teams, and (maybe more importantly) not having their good teams play so many games against the lousy additions.
Meanwhile, the SEC (to an already strong conference) added: TAMU, Mizzou, Texas and Oklahoma - 2 highly ranked teams, one marginal top 25, and one (recent) powerhouse that is having a down year.... with no flotsam diluting the competition.
It is not smoke and mirrors. It is considered and intentional actions to either degrade conference depth and quality, or to enhance quality.
The SEC chose the latter.
The Big 10 chose the former.
The ACC (and Big12) was kind of left without any great options.
Which will turn out better in the long run? Who knows - but my money would be on the best future belonging to the conference(s) with the highest priority on quality.