Why should the vote for president of someone in Wyoming be worth 5.5 times as much as a voter in California?

Because that's the only way there would be a federal government in America.

What choice would you have made in 1787?

We're way beyond 1787.

The Reapportionment Act of 1929 is the cause of the worst distortions.

It fixes the HoR at 435, and is the main cause of the gross imbalance of power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reapportionment_Act_of_1929

Actually, it doesn't.

Wyoming (the least-populous state) has .183% of the US population, so it should have .183% of the US House seats if they were fully proportional. It actually has .230% (1 / 435)--about 1.25× the power it should have. Rhode Island getting two House seats gives it about 1.34× the power it should have. Montana having only one seat leaves it at about 0.673× the power it ought to have.

As quantization errors go, the House's quantization isn't terribly distortive.

Yes but the Electoral College is House+Senante.

So Wyoming gets 4 EC votes.

So... WY gets 4 EC votes with it's 578k population.

My state of NC only gets 15 with it's population of almost 11M.

In what universe is that fair or just?

A universe where were the United States of America, not just America.

We were supposed to be a group of states with a fairly limited federal government. I think it’s really unfortunate that’s been largely done away with.

The alternative view is that CA, MA, and NY already get a Democrat candidate 95/270 or 35% of the way to the Presidency with just 20% of the population. Do those states really need a greater impact?

That's rather a disingenuous way to twist the numbers.

Those states are 20% of the population and 17% of the EC.

By taking advantage of the tiny states the EC can be won with less than 30% of the vote

https://www.npr.org/2016/11/02/500112248/how-to-win-the-pres...

"Fair and just" is out the window as soon as others get to decide how the fruits of 40% of my labor gets spent without my consent. At this point, we might as well just change the rules as we go along because you can't really point to the system we have now and say "it's fair" or "just" in a 100% clearly defined and unambiguous sense that we can all agree on.