If WVU, UL, and UC leave, and TCU never shows up, we will lose the AQ status - not any question about it. If we keep the remaining teams together, TCU joins, and we add Navy and Air Force just for football, our overall league ranking goes up (I agree adding the acadamies is not ideal, but it would not hurt us FB-wise). Syracuse has been really, really bad these past 5 years, and Pitt has been only decent, not great. TCU trumps Pitt significantly, and both Air Force and Navy are big ranking upgrades over Syracuse.
Of course, this is all assuming the BCS sticks with the current criteria in gauging conferences to be worthy for the AQ status. If they do, using the last 3 years (2011 would be included in the 4 year review cycle) the Big East (including TCU's ranking -which we'd get) is currently ranked higher than both the B10 and the ACC. It would go SEC, P10, B12, BE, B10, ACC, and then MWC.
The 3 criteria the BCS looks at is:
(1) Average ranking of a conferences highest ranked team over a 4 year period - Big East is ahead of the ACC over the past 3 years.
(2) Average confernce ranking using the BCS computers - Big East is ahead of the B10 here (not even including TCU) over the past 3 years.
(3) Total # of teams finishing in the top 25 of the Final BCS rankings. It is weighted by the total # of schools each league has, the weighted result actually puts the Big East ahead of the B12, P12, and the ACC over the past 3 years.
So our AQ status is as solid if we do end up holding together, unless the BCS flips the script and changes the guidelines/qualifications.