It's ironic how much trouble the Moot system generates since it's infinitely preferable to hereditary monarchy.

To be fair, it works more often then not. Whenever they can't agree among themselves though is when it generally gets pretty bad.

I'm not so sure. He didn't become Jarl of Eastmarch until after he had been imprisoned for an unknown length of time after the Markarth Incident, which itself was a year after the WGC. Ulfric's father was most likely on the throne when the blood money thing happened.