Is there a better primary system?

As a Republican who's had to hold his nose for the last 2 Presidential elections, I can't help but feel that our current primary system is completely dysfunctional and fails to bring forward the best candidates. It gives false weight to small states early in the process and sets us up to have a bad candidate for the general election.

Personally, I'd like to see the country divided into 6-8 regions of about the same number of states and then have a state from each vote on the same day, say two weeks apart, until a candidate is chosen. If we want to defer to tradition, allow Iowa and New Hampshire to be the states that go first in their regions and have the biggest state in each region vote on Super Tuesday but please, we need something better!