[LOOKAYANNER]

I admire how courteous and classy you are in responses/posts.
I can't say your solution wouldn't work, but I think makes the 14th a little more competitive, which is probably some people don't want HC/Harlan there. I had one school official say "we don't want Harlan County here, they would win every year." While that's certainly not the case, it would make the region a tad tougher overall. The 14th is, by far, the weakest in the state in basketball and taking out Knott and adding Jackson would make it even weaker, at least most years. The Jackson girls may be stronger than Knott this year, but that isn't usually the case.
If you take Knott out and don't add Harlan, you would have a hard time finding district partners for Letcher unless you completely tear the region apart by moving over Perry/Hazard and then shifting everything else.
HC/Harlan would seamlessly fit into the 53rd and everything else could stay the same. The more I look at it though, you may still need a Jackson County in the 55th with Breathitt, Wolfe and Jackson City to have a full 16-team region. That would keep OBI in the same district/region as Clay.
It appears the 14th and KHSAA don't want Harlan County though. They weren't even allowed to move over even in track last year even though the region they were in involved lots of travel and had several more teams than the mountain track region.

You definitely make some solid points about the strength of the 14th being improved with the Harlan County schools. I would have no issues with Harlan County and Harlan moving to the 14th. They would certainly be a natural rival for Letcher Central and Leslie County. 
I’m somewhat bias about my thoughts on Jackson County because I know quite a few people from there and many of them have mentioned to me that they would like to be moved to the 14th. So I hear it from their perspective often. In addition, there’s little doubt that the 14th is usually the weakest of the 16 regions. That is probably another motivator for them.