i had a crazy thought to make the US and Intercontinental belt more relevant while taking a shit a few days ago...
Start with a tournament for each belt leading into X PPV. Once the PPV is here, the winner of the US belt and the IC belt go against each other for the World Title. The winner gets the belt, and drops their belt back into a tournament, and the loser then defends their belt each week leading into the next PPV. On the Smackdown before the next PPV, whoever holds the US belt and IC belt at that time goes against each other to get the right to fight the World title holder at the PPV.
Stipulations for the US and IC belt could be...
US belt - Must be billed from the US to be eligible.
IC belt - Must be billed from out of the US to be eligible.
They would still be open to do whatever storyline they want with the WWE belt, and it would allow more wrestlers screen time.