I don't know if this is Bud Selig's worst idea as commissioner, or merely among the worst.
How can an exhibition game have any impact on meaningful games, let alone the most meaningful of the entire season?!
Here's a solution, Bud: give home-field to the team with the better record. Strange concept, I know, but I firmly believe it's the best and (perfect for you) simplest way to determine who hosts the World Series.
The All-Star game is (or should be) nothing more than a fun opportunity to see the best players in the game perform against each other (and with inter-league play, it's even lost that novelty). Instead, it's contrived to have importance and features not the game's best players, but the most popular. How does Josh Hamilton get in after having just 168 PA? Or Tim Wakefield when a slew of non-All-Stars have been better? If he gets in for 'emotional reasons,' fine, but then the game should not have any significance because it clearly doesn't feature the game's best players. (And how often has there been an undeserving All-Star merely because every team has to have one?)
How can a game of this importance utilize players that the fans vote on?! It's become a popularity contest; I don't have an inherent problem with that though, as the game is intended for the fans (why else would fan voting determine who plays and every team be forcibly represented?). The problem is that the game is not for fun anymore now that 'This Time It Counts,' as FOX has drilled into our heads. If it counts, shouldn't the managers choose who plays?