My wife had a suggestion for solving which state gets the early primary, without ending up with all states trying to have their primary first.
Similarly weighted states (electorally) but diverse geographically would have their primaries on the same day, followed by the next group, and so on. Each election cycle the order would change.
She described it similarly to professional or college sports playoff schedules, which I thought was a very nice, clear way to describe it to any non-wonky political junkie.