While it's true part of the reason trade week and a lot of these events are spaced out as they are is to increase the focus on AFL in the media, I don't think it's a particularly complicated system. It's relatively straight forward but maybe they're no good at explaining it all to the public. Unless you're a hardcore fan, you're probably not paying that much attention to the system and how it works, you just watch the footy and want all the star players in your team.
Most fans want fairness across the competition and this system provides the most fair and equitable movement of players in probably any competition across the world. It's not an easy thing to manage and I think it's one thing the AFL have done pretty well.