The Current State Meet Set-Up
Right now, the AIA State Meet is divided up by divisions (Divison I through Divison IV) and is over three days (Wed, Fri, and Sat). Divisions are primarily based upon school size (Division I being the largest school and Division IV being the smallest schools in the state). The larger divisions (I and II) compete Wednesday and Saturday. The smaller divisions (III and IV) compete Friday and Saturday. Most of the finals (for all divisions) are mostly on that Saturday, where all four divisions are there, but they are not competing against one another, just their other schools within their division.
Qualifying Standards
Each division has qualifying standards (automatic and provisional), which determine who is able to compete in the state championships. There is a great disparity with these standards. For example, in the boys' 100 meters, Division I has an automatic qualifying time of 10.93 and a provisional time of 11.21, while Division IV has an automatic time of 11.55 and a provisional time of 11.92. Now, the reason for this is obvious. Smaller schools have fewer students and hence less of a possibility to have the depth of talent a school of say 2500-4000 students. My pushback here is that track really isn't a team sport (I realize there is a team title, but a discus thrower isn't dependent on how his 400M teammate does), but unlike say baseball where a Division I school may have 100 boys trying out for 20 spots, while a Division IV school may be hard-pressed to even get 20 boys out for a team, there is a good reason why for fairness and competitiveness that schools of the same size range play against each other in team competitions, for the most part.
But individual sports are different. When you're alone out on the field or track you want to know if you're the best athlete, period. Sure, it's good to beat people in your district or conference, but if you're way better than all others in your school division, don't you want to see how you would fare against the best athletes in all divisions? You may say that is what invitationals are for and to some extent I will agree with you; but, I think any true competitor doesn't want an asterisk by his/her name that he/she is the "Division I, II, III, or IV State Champion" but yearns for the unequivocal "State Champion" moniker plain and simple.