Who Changed the Facemask Rule?

I was shocked when I heard that both college and professional football got rid of the 5-yard facemask penalty; all facemask violations are now 15-yard penalties. Who thought that was a good idea? Personally, I think it is one of the most asinine rule changes of modern time. Sure, sometimes the officials screwed up the enforcement of the previous set of rules (they'd give 5 yards when maybe they should have given 15 and vice versa). But, those errors were minor in the grand scheme of poor NCAA football and NFL officiating (need I remind people of the OU v. Oregon game I always reference because it is one of the worst examples of officiating ever, at any level ... and they had REPLAY!!!).

Now, the people who make the rules have laid out that touching the facemask (I'm not sure if this should get a penalty, but it does - an Oklahoma defender was flagged for 15 yards on an inconsequential drive earlier this season) is worthy of the same penalty as nearly decapitating someone by twisting their head around (or even changing the orientation of the helmet with respect to the player's head). Not only is this ridiculous (especially when you had a better system in place already), it's dangerous. Now, if you happen to get your hand in the facemask, you better make sure you get the guy down ASAP because you're probably going to cost your team 15 yards on the penalty, so you don't want to let the guy get an extra 5 dragging your butt down the field. What's one of the most effective ways to tackle a guy? Grab his facemask and rip him down. You're giving them 15 yards, you might as well make it worth it!

I think both entities (NCAA and NFL) should have gone to 3 facemask levels: 5, 10, and 15 yards - with the 15 yarder resulting in an automatic first down as before. The 10-yarder would bridge the gap between the "just barely grab" 5-yarder and the personal foul 15-yarder. Maybe that's just too much for the officials to handle?

P.S. I mentioned I saw one called when someone's hand just grazed the facemask and no grabbing occurred. I've also seen multiple people dragged down by their facemask this year (in both college and the NFL - Westbrook in the Eagles v. Cowboys game on one play) without a flag being thrown. Now, that's consistency!