You know what I'd love to see? An American Idol tryout style road show.
Like, the coach and some USMNT players go around to some cities around the countries, set up open tryouts, and let folks show their stuff. Maybe you get one player that you've never heard of, but you drum up excitement, publicity, etc. It worked for the Eagles that one time, where they signed Mark Wahlberg. Maybe you find that guy who plays on a dirt field in Arkansas that no one has ever heard of.
I get that we are in development, and I'm excited about some of the younger guys. I thought Devlin looked great. You are absolutely right that the "more popular" US sports hurt the available talent pool for soccer -- you see it with baseball players who play basketball, etc.
Where the MLS is now, miles ahead of where it was when I was living full time in the US. I'm nominally a Columbus Crew fan, given I'm from Ohio originally and I've attended a game and Brian McBride played there. I think drawing in old stars from Europe helped hype in the beginning, but cheapens the league now (see Sydney FC's Del Piero experiement here). I do love that a majority of the US team plays in the US.
We'll see where we are in 4 years. I'm sure it'll be in Qatar, probably in another group of death. But I'm going to be bitterly sad for the next week or two no matter what, and I'm going to be overly annoyed at the silly positive memes going around about "believe" and "hope" and "thank you heroes" and the like.