I really don't want to get bogged down in this, especially as I'm mostly playing devil's advocate; but... I don't see how either of those matches makes money, nor how either grows the game - especially as, to fit them in, you've got to sacrifice the big pay-day match at the big stadium, and a competitive match at the smaller.
To take a random (extreme) example, the Danes don't learn anything from shipping 100+ points to England (or England A, or England U20s), and it'll be a non-event. Twickenham wouldn't sell that out even if they gave away 2/3 of the tickets to schools for free.
Novelty might get an extra 100 bums on seats in Copenhagen, but actual interest, and press coverage etc would be nothing like for a close(ish) game against the likes of Norway or Finland, with whom they have a historical rivalry, and similar quality of team.
So the European bias would be that there are too many teams, with too great a discrepancy in quality/interest to be "worth" doing it, and
existing tournaments for the top 35+ teams already (ranked from 13 to 100 + 3NR); so there's no "need" for a load of walk-overs just to show that yes, the 5th best team in the world is better than the 55th best.
In Africa, there's just the one big team, who aren't worth putting into the draw, and who would represent an actual danger to (most of) the others - try putting the Boks up against Madagascar!
And again, there's an
existing tournament for the next best 16 teams (ranking from 22 to 95 + 1NR) and historically, South Africa entered an amateur team 4 times, winning the ***le 3 times.
In the Americas, there's just the one big team, who aren't worth putting into the draw, and again, there's an
existing tournament. This time, there probably wouldn't be all that much danger (due to the quality of opposition); but Argentina do put in a lesser XV; with a W-D-L ratio of 31-2-1. But then, there's only 5 other nations taking part (ranked 12 to 29).
In Oceana, there's the Pacific Nations Cup; and RWC qualification is based around whether 1 of them (usually Tonga) can get through the repêchage of RWC qualification; not whether any of them can keep All Blacks honest, and certainly not whether the Cook Islands would stand a hope against the ABs. The rankings covered by the PNC are 10-15; none of who are realistically in injury danger from playing against one of the big boys; and all of whom are professional.
I'm surprised to find there's no Jr version of the PNC with Cook Islands, PNG etc - well, technically there is, but it only seems to consist of
3 teams at the bottom of the rankings, and none from the mid-table - surely I'm missing something.
Even in Asia, there's a
tournie for not-Japan; covering 20 teams (ranked 24 to 94 + 7NR).
Surely, the point of qualification rounds for a world cup, is to ensure that the best teams are at the world cup.
It's been decided that 20 teams contest it.
The question isn't whether the top 10 countries should be there, but exactly who the next best 10 are.
Pitting anyone from the top 10 against anyone from the 3rd or 4th set of 10 is... pointless (playing DA; "pointless in terms of deciding if they're better team" if not), let alone top 10 against the 5th-10th set of 10 (which opens the question of how far down the pyramid do you want to see a qualification tournament to reach the RWC?)
ETA: Dammit! I think I just failed to avoid getting bogged down
